Abstract:

In the last years, artificial intelligence (AI) has been integrated into educational systems to enhance students’ learning experiences as well as to improve teaching practices. AI-powered educational tools have the capacity to provide students with immediate feedback and assessment in real-time. In this context, ChatGPT, which is a free AI text-based system by OpenAI, has revolutionized the academic teaching and learning across all educational levels. To date, several articles have reported the potential benefits of ChatGPT in chemistry courses, being some of the advantages the possibility to answer scientific questions giving instantaneous feedback to students or generate topic summaries, among others. On the contrary, the use of ChatGPT can entail some risks, since sometimes it is unable to provide accurate references and is not capable of deeply applying and interpreting theoretical questions. However, the functionality of ChatGPT in answering chemistry assessment questions requires more investigation to ascertain its potential impact on learning and assessment. For this reason, it is essential to introduce ChatGPT to students, teaching them how to effectively use it and how to verify the information provided. In addition, it is crucial to ensure that students are aware of the tool's limitations.

This study aims to evaluate the impact of generative AI, concretely ChatGPT, on interest, critical thinking and academic achievement of students from “Chemistry”, “Pharmacy” and “Food Science and Technology” Degrees and a Master’s Degree in “Experimental Techniques in Chemistry” from the University of Valencia (Spain). For this purpose, students were organized in small groups (2-5 students), and they were proposed to use the ChatGPT application for different purposes considering the next criteria:
(i) the selected topic must be related to the subject, and
(ii) the topic should be previously agreed with the professor of the subject.

Then, students carefully interpretated and evaluated the answers of ChatGPT using their theoretical knowledge, critical thinking and data information from literature. Finally, they were asked to evaluate the activity with a satisfaction survey, which addressed general aspects of this learning activity. The results showed that most of the students were satisfied with the proposed activity, since they found it as a positive learning experience that help them to understand better the selected topic. Also, they were able to detect that this tool not always provided accurate information, which enriched the learning experience even more and demonstrated the critical thinking of students.

Keywords:

Artificial Intelligence, Chemistry Education, Critical thinking, Student-Centered Learning, Web-Based Learning.