Student or educator? Sign up with your school email and get 6 months of Pro free.
Cited by 89Artificial Intelligence in EducationIntelligent Tutoring Systems and Adaptive LearningArtificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 129 of the 131 references it cites were found in a registry or an index, and 2 are not checked yet; none of the 19 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.

Effects of Generative Artificial Intelligence on K-12 and Higher Education Students’ Learning Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis

Open access
Liu, Xiaohong, Guo, Baoxin, He, Wei, Hu, Xiaoyong·2025·Journal of Educational Computing Research

Abstract

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has significant potential for educational innovation, although its impact on students’ learning outcomes remains controversial. This study aimed to examine the impact of GenAI on the learning outcomes of K-12 and higher education students, and explore the moderating factors influencing this impact. A meta-analysis of 49 articles showed that the mean effect sizes of GenAI on students’ learning achievement and learning motivation were 0.857 and 0.803, respectively, indicating a positive impact of GenAI on education. However, this effect varied according to moderators, including education level, subject classification, GenAI interface, GenAI development, interaction approaches, and experimentation time, which enhanced the impact of GenAI on education. Specifically, GenAI had a greater impact on the academic performance of higher education students, and students interacted more effectively with GenAI using text than with mixed media, such as images or audio. Although GenAI has a novel effect on students’ learning motivation, the effect size decreases over time. These findings provide empirical support for the beneficial effects of GenAI on education and offer insights for optimizing its use in teaching practices.

Checked 2026-11-12 · 2 references not checked yet

Overview

CoChat Summary

TL;DR

This meta-analysis of 49 studies finds that generative AI has a large positive overall effect on students’ learning achievement (g = 0.857) and learning motivation (g = 0.803), though effects vary by education level, subject, interface, development approach, interaction mode, and experiment duration. The authors conclude GenAI benefits learning but that design and implementation choices matter.

Key findings

  • GenAI showed a large positive overall effect on learning achievement (g = 0.857, 95% CI [0.601, 1.113], p < .05) and learning motivation (g = 0.803, 95% CI [0.445, 1.161], p < .05).
  • Effects differed by education level: for achievement, higher education students benefited more (g = 0.959) than K-12 students (g = 0.495); for motivation, K-12 students benefited more (g = 1.651) than higher education students (g = 0.642).
  • Application-based GenAI access had stronger achievement effects (g = 1.107) than web-based access (g = 0.259); text-only interaction had stronger achievement effects (g = 1.033) than mixed interaction (g = 0.816), and much stronger motivation effects (g = 2.086 vs. g = 0.621).
  • Duration moderated outcomes: achievement was strongest at 5–10 weeks (g = 1.892) and declined beyond 15 weeks (g = 0.413); motivation was strongest at 1–5 weeks (g = 0.821) and decreased beyond 5 weeks (g = 0.697).

Methods

  • PRISMA-guided meta-analysis searching WOS and Scopus on August 18, 2024, plus snowball sampling; from 3,760 initial records and 122 snowball records, 49 articles met inclusion criteria.
  • Included empirical studies with a GenAI experimental group and non-GenAI control group, measured learning outcomes, and provided effect-size or sufficient statistical information; studies were coded independently by two researchers.
  • Analyses used Comprehensive Meta-Analysis 3.0, Hedges’ g, 95% CIs, random-effects models due to significant heterogeneity, and moderator analyses for education level, subject classification, GenAI interface, GenAI development, interaction approach, and experiment duration.

Limitations

  • The paper states it included only English-language literature from WOS and Scopus; excluded empirical studies lacking sufficient effect-size data; did not examine different types of GenAI as moderators; and found publication-bias test results varied across methods, possibly because negative results are more likely to be rejected.
  • Evident from the text: several outcomes had too few studies for meta-analysis (critical thinking n = 4, knowledge retention n = 2, learning anxiety n = 2), and some moderator cells were very small, such as motivation for experiments >15 weeks (n = 1).

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1177/07356331251329185

Cites

129 of 131 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Verification

Claims the paper makes

0 Valid · 5 Not valid · 16 Not checked · 51 Own results and interpretations

25 more claims

Create a free account to see all 72 claims and to verify the 3 references still open.

See all claims — free account
  • It may state two separate claims as one. 31
  • The quote only partly states this claim. 3
  • Probably not a substantial claim. 12

Create a free account to see these claims.

Statistics recomputed

Every reported test result, recomputed from its test statistic and degrees of freedom. A result shows as not adding up only once an independent check has confirmed it.

  • Consistentz = 4.758reported p < .05 · recomputed p < .001

    “(z = 4.758, p < .05”

  • Consistentz = 3.229reported p < .05 · recomputed p = .001

    “(z = 3.229, p < .05”

2 of 2

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.

5 of 7 · the rest aren’t loaded

2 more findings

Create a free account to see every finding of this check.

See all findings — free account

Citations

Cites

Show all 125 references

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. Moore B. N., Parker R. (2012). Critical thinking. Mcgraw-Hill.

Cited by

Metadata

Authors
Liu, X., Guo, B., He, W., & Hu, X.
Affiliations
South China Normal University (CN)
Corresponding author
Hu, Xiaoyong
Venue
Journal of Educational Computing Research
Published
2025-04-11
Volume
63
Issue
5
Pages
1249-1291
ISSN
  • 0735-6331 (ISSN-L)
  • 1541-4140
OpenAlex
W4409352105
Cited by
89
References
125
Citations by year
2026: 77 · 2025: 12
FWCI
9.27
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
Journal of Educational Computing Research (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2024M760980)
  • National Social Science Foundation of China (BCA240050)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Education › Artificial Intelligence in Education
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Intelligent Tutoring Systems and Adaptive Learning
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Health Informatics › Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education
Keywords
generative AI, learning outcomes, K-12 education, higher education, academic performance, student motivation, moderators, text-based interaction, educational technology

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

A language model drew the claims from the paper on 2026-11-12, under version 3 of the claim definition (model deepseek-v4.1-flash, prompt extract-v3).

A second model labelled each claim on 2026-11-12 (model jev-1.13-20260917, definition revision gold-guideline-v0.2).

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review

Data sources

Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.