In two preregistered lab experiments and a field study, LLM access had no overall effect on learning: students who used it to generate solutions covered more topics but understood each less, students who asked it for explanations understood more, and the gap between students with low and high prior knowledge widened.

SocioLens project,

Claim LD04-SL-C13 (v1.0)

Research opportunities this claim motivates

What this claim leaves open for research. Each is a hypothesis about a gap, not a finding.

Does retained skill depend on how routine the task is and who is learning?Students who used an LLM to generate solutions understood less, and the gap by prior knowledge widened.
What AI set-ups do employers actually give trainees and junior staff?Asking an LLM for explanations raised understanding while generating solutions lowered it.
Does handing work to the model cause both skill loss and sameness?Students who used a model to generate solutions covered more but understood less, while those who asked for explanations understood more.
What work do junior staff in Greek firms still learn by doing once AI arrives?Students who used a language model to generate solutions understood less than those who asked it for explanations, so how juniors use the tool may matter as much as whether they use it.

Provenance and status

Claim type: Estimate
Publication status: Eligible for publication, with qualifiers: preprint
Verification state: Checked against the primary source; the source is a preprint. Who checked this claim is not recorded for it; claim checks so far were AI-led, and no person has checked claims against their sources.
Does not license: Workplace skill effects; a fixed effect of LLM access
Limitations: Preprint; the framing changed between versions; student samples
Source (as cited): Lehmann, Cornelius & Sting, “AI Meets the Classroom: When Do Large Language Models Harm Learning?,” arXiv:2409.09047 v2, March 2025
Source type: Preprint (recorded as “Preprint”)
Institutional position: Independent academic
Maturity of the evidence: Emerging evidence
Recorded date: 14 October 2026
Currentness / correction: This is the current version. No correction or concern is recorded on its sources.

Sources this version cites

Lehmann, Cornelius & Sting, “AI Meets the Classroom: When Do Large Language Models Harm Learning?,” arXiv:2409.09047 v2, March 2025 (Preprint)
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Version

This is the current version, v1.0. Earlier versions stay available, and their records never change.

Versions: v1.0 · current

Raw record: every recorded field, with its coded values

All 25 canonical Claim fields, verbatim, with the coded values derived from them. The plain-language labels above are read from these.

Claim type (coded): ESTIMATE (as printed: “ESTIMATE”)
Publication status (coded): ELIGIBLE (PREPRINT) (as printed: “ELIGIBLE WITH PREPRINT QUALIFIER”)
Verification state (coded): CONTENT_VERIFIED_PRIMARY (PREPRINT)
Source type (coded): PREPRINT
Maturity (coded): EMERGING

#	Canonical field	Canonical value (verbatim)	Normalized (Claim Value Vocabulary v1.0.2)
1	CLAIM ID	LD04-SL-C13	—
2	PUBLIC-FACING CLAIM	In two preregistered lab experiments and a field study, LLM access had no overall effect on learning: students who used it to generate solutions covered more topics but understood each less, students who asked it for explanations understood more, and the gap between students with low and high prior knowledge widened.	—
3	CLAIM TYPE	ESTIMATE	base_types: ESTIMATE
4	RESEARCH STRAND	B — Skill after the tool is removed	—
5	MATURITY	EMERGING	states: EMERGING
6	SOURCE	Lehmann, Cornelius & Sting, “AI Meets the Classroom: When Do Large Language Models Harm Learning?,” arXiv:2409.09047 v2, March 2025	source_ids: SRC-SL-LEHMANN-CORNELIUS-STING-ARXIV-2409-09047
7	SOURCE TYPE	Preprint	classes: PREPRINT
8	INSTITUTIONAL POSITION	Independent academic	—
9	SCOPE	Students; subject matter not reported here	—
10	DESIGN	Two preregistered, incentivized lab experiments plus a field study	—
11	SAMPLE / DATASET	Not reported here	—
12	MODEL / TOOL / VERSION	LLM chat assistant	—
13	COMPARATOR	Learning without LLM access	—
14	MAIN RESULT	No overall learning effect; substitution (generating solutions) raises topic volume and lowers understanding; complementing (asking for explanations) raises understanding without more topics; LLMs widen the gap between low and high prior knowledge	—
15	INFERENTIAL TARGET	How the way students use LLMs changes what they learn	—
16	DOES NOT LICENSE	Workplace skill effects; a fixed effect of LLM access	—
17	VERIFICATION STATE	CONTENT VERIFIED PREPRINT	state: CONTENT_VERIFIED_PRIMARY · qualifiers: PREPRINT · verified_by: UNKNOWN
18	LIMITATIONS	Preprint; the framing changed between versions; student samples	—
19	CONTRADICTORY / SUPPORTING SOURCES	Consistent with delegation patterns predicting low scores in a programming-library experiment	—
20	GEOGRAPHY / LANGUAGE	Not checked / English	—
21	DISTRIBUTIONAL LEDGER	High-prior-knowledge students gain more in understanding	—
22	R01 / FIELD-MAP LINKS	LD-04, D2	—
23	WHAT WOULD CHANGE THIS CLAIM?	Peer review or replication that changes the widening result	—
24	PUBLICATION STATUS	ELIGIBLE WITH PREPRINT QUALIFIER	state: ELIGIBLE · qualifiers: PREPRINT
25	RECORDED DATE	2026-10-14	—

Field 22 references resolved against Field Map v0.2: LD-04 (LIVING_DEBATE); D2 (DOMAIN)

The sources as recorded, with their record IDs and coded source types:

Pinned Sources (field 6, version-specific)

“Lehmann, Cornelius & Sting, “AI Meets the Classroom: When Do Large Language Models Harm Learning?,” arXiv:2409.09047 v2, March 2025” → Lehmann et al. (2025), “AI Meets the Classroom: When Do…” (SRC-SL-LEHMANN-CORNELIUS-STING-ARXIV-2409-09047--v1.0) — Lehmann, Cornelius & Sting, “AI Meets the Classroom: When Do Large Language Models Harm Learning?,” arXiv:2409.09047 v2, March 2025; class PREPRINT (explicit public provenance pin)

Cited by Living Debate versions

Cite this page

SocioLens project. (2026, October 14). In two preregistered lab experiments and a field study, LLM access had no overall effect on learning: students who used it to generate solutions covered more topics but understood each less, students who asked it for explanations understood more, and the gap between students with low and high prior knowledge widened [Claim LD04-SL-C13, version v1.0]. SocioLens. https://sociolens-web.pages.dev/claims/ld04-sl-c13/v1.0/

@misc{sociolens_ld04_sl_c13_v1_0,
  author = {{SocioLens project}},
  title = {In two preregistered lab experiments and a field study, LLM access had no overall effect on learning: students who used it to generate solutions covered more topics but understood each less, students who asked it for explanations understood more, and the gap between students with low and high prior knowledge widened.},
  year = {2026},
  date = {2026-10-14},
  howpublished = {\url{https://sociolens-web.pages.dev/claims/ld04-sl-c13/v1.0/}},
  note = {Claim LD04-SL-C13, version v1.0}
}

The link points to this version, whose record never changes. For a finding, cite the original study as well: SocioLens summarizes research and does not replace it.

Research-of-record provenance

Materialized by sociolens-materializer 0.6.0 at 2026-09-28T20:00:00.000Z; normalization contract SocioLens — Claim Value Vocabulary v1.0.2 — Pre-Spike Materialization Contract (v1.0.2). Content seal SHA-256 e1b868cfc46d72ba84f59f8dd985121754a17629c98e7e4d9e066f808ae3ed97.

Repository-authored inputs (not Drive exports)

SocioLens claim — LD04-SL-C13 v1.0 (v1.0) — written in the SocioLens repository by Project Lead (Claude, AI) on 2026-10-14; no Drive identity exists. Authority: AGENTS.md "Authority" (the Project Lead decides research content within the research-integrity rules) and the Owner's choice in the SocioLens project chat on 14 October 2026 to build the LD-04 debate; a new Claim, first version, written from the project's LD-04 source notes, checked against full texts or official abstracts. Block “ENTRY 13 — LD04-SL-C13” SHA-256 bd4bfc728a22dc42dfff6bfaba045d3bc6215af45033394ce682751f56b855d8; fixture fixtures/authored/claims/LD04-SL-C13--v1.0.

Builder decisions (not Drive data)

VERSION = v1.0 — basis: Claim version taken from the repository-authored claim fixture version (SocioLens claim — LD04-SL-C13 v1.0); the first version of a new Claim of the LD-04 debate
CURRENT_POINTER = true — basis: repository-authored claim "SocioLens claim — LD04-SL-C13 v1.0" (Project Lead (Claude, AI), 2026-10-14); basis: AGENTS.md "Authority" (the Project Lead decides research content within the research-integrity rules) and the Owner's choice in the SocioLens project chat on 14 October 2026 to build the LD-04 debate; a new Claim, first version, written from the project's LD-04 source notes, checked against full texts or official abstracts
FIELD_6_SOURCE_REFERENCE = SRC-SL-LEHMANN-CORNELIUS-STING-ARXIV-2409-09047--v1.0 — basis: field 6 of ENTRY 13 — LD04-SL-C13 cites "Lehmann, Cornelius & Sting, “AI Meets the Classroom: When Do Large Language Models Harm Learning?,” arXiv:2409.09047 v2, March 2025"; the only field-6 segment of this ClaimVersion's repository-authored ledger block.
SOURCE_PROVENANCE_PIN = SRC-SL-LEHMANN-CORNELIUS-STING-ARXIV-2409-09047--v1.0 — basis: explicit version-pinned public provenance of this ClaimVersion (Amendment v1.2 §6): the pinned field-6 Source record "Lehmann, Cornelius & Sting, “AI Meets the Classroom: When Do Large Language Models Harm Learning?,” arXiv:2409.09047 v2, March 2025".