GenAI tools are increasingly used in teaching and learning: in a 2025 National Literacy Trust report, two in three 13 – 18 year olds reported using AI to support literacy and learning.
There is potential for GenAI to support learners and enhance learning, but also risk of negative impact. Importantly, those impacts will likely depend on how it is used. The EEF is keen to address this fundamental and complex area of enquiry – the impact of GenAl on learning and cognition – and the conditions under which impacts are beneficial, harmful or inequitable for different groups of pupils, including disadvantaged learners.
GenAI can be used in different ways to support the learning process, for instance, synthesising or summarising information, expanding or rephrasing concepts, providing worked examples and providing formative feedback.
We are particularly interested in how cognitive offloading (Risko and Gilbert, 2016), the delegation of cognitive processes that would otherwise be undertaken by the learner, relates to these uses and to cognitive outcomes. Cognitive outcomes may include short-term memory, working memory, attention, critical thinking and knowledge acquisition.
We welcome innovative evaluation designs that aim to generate robust experimental evidence on the impact of GenAI and the mechanisms through which it drives change in learning and cognition in school-aged learners. Ultimately, we hope that this line of enquiry will help us understand to what extent (if any) cognitive offloading helps or harms learning, which cognitive processes are worth protecting from AI-enabled offloading and which could be supported by AI.
Research teams with experience of conducting experimental studies in education, with a strong grounding in the theory of learning, and ideally also AI in education, are invited to submit expressions of interest (EOIs).
We are interested in EOIs from single research teams and/or consortia with complementary expertise and where the consortium can demonstrate that they will work well together to ensure the quality and efficiency of the project. This call for EOIs is open; researchers do not need to be part of EEF’s panel of evaluators.
Please note that we accept applications only from legally constituted organisations, not from individuals. The organisation does not have to be based in England, but if not based in England, we would expect the team to demonstrate the knowledge required to complete this work.
Interested applicants should submit their EOI by completing this application form by 5pm on 30th June.
If you have any questions, please contact amy.ellis-thompson@eefoundation.org.uk and celeste.cheung@eefoundation.org.uk before 9 am on 18th June.
On 23rd June we will publish on the ITT webpage a list of responses to questions, which all interested applicants can then use to inform their EOI submissions. We will plan to address questions via this central response rather than individual follow ups unless we need more information to respond.