To meet these challenges, Pan’s crew undertook four related experiments. I won’t go through all the nitty gritty, but the highlights make for encouraging reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Pan’s most basic experiment, one group of students read a passage about different kinds of brakes: air brakes, mechanical brakes, hydraulic brakes — you get the idea. A second group read two AI-generated prequestions about that passage before they read it. Sure enough: the students who read the AI-created prequestions scored higher on a follow-up quiz than those who didn’t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unsurprisingly, they scored higher when answering the same questions that they initially read as prequestions. They ALSO scored higher when answering novel questions. In other words: it seems that the benefits of answering prequestions goes beyond the precise questions themselves to the passage overall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don’t Stop Now<\/h2>\n\n\n\n To make sure they have a persuasive case, Pan’s team didn’t stop there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
They asked: do AI-generated prequestions provide as much benefit as human-generated prequestions<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\nShort answer: “yes.” Technically speaking, in some cases the human-generated prequestions led to slightly higher quiz scores — but the differences were tiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They asked: do AI-generated prequestions help more or less than previewing an AI-generated outline?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nShort answer: “trying to answer the prequestions helped considerably more than previewing an outline.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They asked: do detailed prompts produce better questions, or does a basic prompt work well too?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nShort answer: “a basic prompt worked just fine.” In one study, the basic prompt led to more effective prequestions than the detailed one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To summarize the good news in this study:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nAI-generated prequestions help students learn from reading new information<\/li>\n\n\n\n They help as much as human-generated prequestions<\/li>\n\n\n\n Prequestions improve memory of the entire passage — not just the answers to the questions themselves<\/li>\n\n\n\n They help more than some other kinds of warm-up activities, like studying an outline<\/li>\n\n\n\n Even basic prompts work just fine<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nGood News…Bad News?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n With all that good news, is there any bad news?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Honestly, I don’t see much “bad news” here. But — as always — I do see limitations<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\nAs far as I know, prequestions have been studied for learning from reading passages. I don’t know if we have evidence showing they benefit students who, say, listen to a discussion or a teacher presentation. For that reason, this strategy isn’t obviously road-tested for younger grades.<\/li>\n\n\n\n This study focused on adult learners; the average participant age for these studies was in the low 30s. We don’t know if AI-generated prequestions will help in 8th grade — although it’s not obvious to me why they wouldn’t.<\/li>\n\n\n\n This study, like most research into prequestions, tests memory after a few minutes. Will it help over longer periods of time? I don’t think we know.<\/li>\n\n\n\n Prequestions aren’t a panacea. We don’t need to use them all the time. They should be one strategy that we use judiciously, not a hard-and-fast requirement.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\nOnce we acknowledge those limitations, I think we have a compelling case. We know that — under the right circumstances — prequestions can help students learn. And, thanks to Pan and his colleagues, we know that AI-generated prequestions provide the benefits we want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the top of this post, I asked this question: “Can you name me just one specific — even mundane — way that AI can make teaching and learning simpler and better?” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Team Pan answers: “AI can help both students and teachers generate prequestions. And those AI-created questions help learning.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps you’ll begin new classroom year with a prequestion or two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pan, S. C., Schweppe, J., Teo, A. Z. J., Indrajaya, A., & Wenzel, N. (2025). Using ChatGPT-generated prequestions to improve memory and text comprehension. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. Advance online publication. https:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1037\/mac0000254<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
2025 included MANY grand claims about transformational potential for AI: Here’s a question that got less air time: “Can you name me just one specific — even mundane — way that AI can make teaching and learning simpler and better?” As of today, my answer to that question is YES. Here’s the story. Regular readers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":6669558,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[250,203],"class_list":["post-6669498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-ai","tag-prequestions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6669498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6669498"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6669498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6669606,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6669498\/revisions\/6669606"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6669558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6669498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6669498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6669498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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