How Students Really Feel About ChatGPT: Study Reveals Surprising Insights

As AI tools like ChatGPT reshape education, a major international study highlights how students embrace its benefits while questioning its reliability and ethical impact—should universities adapt or resist?

Research: Higher education students’ perceptions of ChatGPT: A global study of early reactions. Image Credit: Poca Wander Stock / Shutterstock

An international survey study involving more than 23,000 higher education students reveals trends in how they use and experience ChatGPT, highlighting both positive perceptions and awareness of the AI chatbot's limitations. Dejan Ravšelj of the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS One on February 5, 2025.

Prior research suggests that ChatGPT can enhance learning, despite concerns about its role in academic integrity, potential impacts on critical thinking, and occasionally inaccurate responses. However, the few studies exploring student perceptions of ChatGPT in higher education have been limited in scope. Ravšelj and colleagues designed an anonymous online survey study aiming to provide a broader view.

From October 2023 to February 2024—a period soon after the public release of ChatGPT in late 2022—23,218 students representing 109 countries and territories took the survey, which asked about perceptions of various aspects of ChatGPT, such as how they use it, ethical concerns, and views on its potential labor market impacts.

Analysis of the survey results revealed several trends. For instance, overall, participants tended to feel positively about ChatGPT, finding it valuable for brainstorming, summarizing texts, academic writing, and simplifying complex information. However, they reported concerns about ChatGPT's reliability, its potential to erode critical thinking skills, and ethical issues around its use, such as cheating and privacy. Students also widely acknowledged the need for AI regulations due to concerns about ChatGPT promoting plagiarism, social isolation, and misinformation. While participants reported a preference for human interaction, they anticipated rising demand for AI-related skills.

Interestingly, less than a third of students (29%) reported using ChatGPT for brainstorming, and only one in ten (11%) for creative writing. Summarizing long texts (27%) was another frequently used function, underscoring its role in information processing. However, most students (70%) found ChatGPT interesting to use, and a quarter (25%) found it easier to interact with ChatGPT than with colleagues. Despite this, the majority still valued personal connections in learning, reinforcing the importance of human interaction.

The students' perceptions varied across sociodemographic and geographic factors. For instance, those in lower-income regions were more likely to perceive ChatGPT as essential support in the context of limited educational resources, while students in high-income regions placed greater value on ChatGPT's innovative and advanced features. Additionally, students expressed skepticism about ChatGPT’s reliability in traditional classroom learning, noting that while it was useful for summarization and brainstorming, its impact on study efficiency and learning outcomes remained uncertain.

In all, the researchers note, these findings could help inform the design of higher education curricula and policies to harness the benefits of ChatGPT equitably across diverse student populations. Future research could address some of this study's limitations, such as by tracking students' perceptions over time and including more students from low-income countries.

The authors add: "A new milestone in generative artificial intelligence research in higher education: Early global perceptions of ChatGPT, drawn from over 23,000 students across 109 countries and territories, highlight its role as an engaging learning tool while raising ethical concerns that require further attention. The study examines student perspectives on its usage, capabilities, regulation, satisfaction, attitudes, study outcomes, skills development, labor market implications, and emotional responses."

Students predominantly felt curiosity and calmness while using ChatGPT, with minimal reports of negative emotions such as frustration or anxiety. Moreover, they anticipated that ChatGPT would increase the demand for AI-related skills but did not perceive it as a major threat to employment. Instead, they saw ChatGPT as a complementary tool rather than a job replacement, suggesting that universities may need to integrate AI literacy into curricula to prepare students for future workforce demands.