๐ Can an AI tutor help a student learn as much as a real human tutor does? A study with 2,469 participants just answered that.
Title: StudentBench: AI and human tutoring yield equivalent GRE learning gains
URL:
โ What did they compare?
For GRE quantitative and verbal reasoning, they compared three conditions - AI tutoring, tutoring by professional human tutors, and watching an educational video - measuring the test-score gain before and after a one-hour session.
โ What did they find?
On the combined score, the gap between AI and human tutoring was just -0.58 percentage points, statistically equivalent (p=.015). Six individual models, including Claude Opus and Gemini 3.5 Flash, each matched human tutors on their own.
โ How much cheaper is it?
The most cost-efficient model, Gemma 4 31B, matched human-level learning gains at 1/918th the cost per percentage point of learning gain.
โ Where do humans still win?
Human tutors still averaged the best results across the three verbal reasoning areas, and the study also found a causal chain where faster AI responses led to more student messages, more correct practice, and ultimately bigger learning gains.
#
AIEducation# #
LLM#