Listening to course material via AI podcast boosts grades among UvA students
UvA students who received AI-generated podcasts summarizing their study material turned out to be more motivated, spent more time reading, and most importantly: achieved higher grades. Research by UvA scholars shows that AI-powered audio can serve as the engine that gets students into study mode. “A fifteen-minute podcast can give students the feeling: I can do this,” says researcher Nanda Jafarian.
Psychology students at the UvA who used AI-generated podcasts of their study material scored, on average, twenty percent higher than peers who had no audio support. With an average grade of 6.6, students with access to the AI podcasts clearly outperformed their peers without audio assistance, who averaged only a 5.5. That is the conclusion of a study conducted by UvA PhD candidate Nanda Jafarian.
The experiment involved 410 students enrolled in the Brain & Cognition course. Half of the group received short audio summaries in podcast form, generated with OpenAI's GPT-4, based on the textbook and course objectives. The other half followed the standard approach of lectures and assigned readings.
The results? Students who used the podcasts performed better – primarily because they spent more time reading. Reading? Yes – because once the podcast had been listened to, the step to actually opening the textbook became smaller. Students with access to the AI podcasts read an average of sixty hours of course material, compared to only forty hours among students without the AI support. “For many students, opening a thick textbook is a major hurdle. Starting a ten- to fifteen-minute audio is much more approachable. It lowers cognitive load and gives a sense of motivation: I can do this,”says Jafarian.
But aren’t students who both listen to podcasts and read the textbook just more motivated to begin with – and doesn’t that explain their better performance? Jafarian doesn’t think so. “We measured students’ learning motivation before the start of the experiment. The data showed no significant differences in baseline motivation between students who later listened to the podcasts and those who barely used them.” In other words: the podcast users did not start out more motivated than the rest. And so, Jafarian concludes that it really is the podcasts that helped boost the students’ grades.
For students with ADHD symptoms—who often face challenges in concentration and motivation—the use of AI-generated podcasts even had a leveling effect on their academic performance. With AI support, education can become more inclusive, Jafarian argues. “Because it lowers the barriers for students who struggle with motivation,” he says.
