IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/21882.html

Training Novices to Think, or Giving Them LLMs? Evidence from an RCT

Author

Listed:
  • Asirvatham, Hemath
  • Betti, Chiara
  • Brown, Rachel
  • Camuffo, Arnaldo
  • Chatterji, Aaron
  • Fumagalli, Chiara
  • Gambardella, Alfonso
  • Mariani, Myriam
  • Pandey, Abhinav
  • Ramos, Steve
  • Salvucci, Giovanni
  • Simic, Vladimir

Abstract

Our ability to solve problems is changing with LLMs, but we do not know how LLMs combine with cognitive skills. We study the implications of this combination for a set of processes and outcomes: coherent logic (if A then B), falsification (counterfactual thinking), mechanisms (understanding why), evaluated quality of outcomes, distance from expert solutions, and number and diversity of ideas. A pre-registered 2 x 2 randomized controlled trial assigns 1,053 first-year undergraduate business school students to four conditions: training in causal reasoning, access to ChatGPT, none, or both. Exposure to both treatments is a net benefit because, for each outcome, at least one of the two treatments improves it and neither harms it. Our study is unique in the literature in its scale, in combining an LLM treatment with a treatment targeting a relevant cognitive skill, and in the breadth of processes and outcomes it covers.

Suggested Citation

  • Asirvatham, Hemath & Betti, Chiara & Brown, Rachel & Camuffo, Arnaldo & Chatterji, Aaron & Fumagalli, Chiara & Gambardella, Alfonso & Mariani, Myriam & Pandey, Abhinav & Ramos, Steve & Salvucci, Giova, 2026. "Training Novices to Think, or Giving Them LLMs? Evidence from an RCT," CEPR Discussion Papers 21882, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:21882
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP21882
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General
    • J08 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics Policies
    • M31 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Marketing

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:21882. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CEPR (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://cepr.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.