Undergraduate students’ genAI knowledge contains specific confident misconceptions, most prevalently that AI chatbots perform web searches¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2026 · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person · recheck by 2031: baselines and conditions change

Subclaims¶

q2 i? 97.0% of participants incorrectly believed that “AI chatbots perform web searches,” and items 4, 10, and 11 had negative misconception scores indicating actual misconceptions. → Markus H. Hefter 2026 q2 i? Only 9.0% of participants had a misconception score below zero, indicating few actual misconceptions and mostly missing conceptions. → Markus H. Hefter 2026

Evidence¶

Markus H. Hefter 2026¶

Markus H. Hefter, Benjamin Paaßen, Kirsten Berthold. (2026). GenAI Knowledge, Epistemic Orientation, and Intellectual Values Predict Undergraduate Students’ Critical GenAI Use. AI Educ. 2026, 2, 27. https://doi.org/10.3390/aieduc2030027

q2 · i? · associational · r2

Exploratory item-level analysis of the 12-item objective knowledge test with certainty ratings in the same sample. The authors report that “97.0% of the participants believed that ‘AI chatbots perform web searches’” while only 9.0% had misconception scores below zero.

"the correctness rates for our 12 items ranged from 3.0% (Item 4) to 91.0% (Item 2). In other words, 97.0% of the participants believed that “AI chatbots perform web searches.” (Item 4). However, when looking at the misconception score, which combines correctness and certainty ratings, only 9.0% of participants had a misconception score below zero."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

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