Bad Influence: How Unqualified Educational Content Creators Affect Students in the UK

Published

2 December 2025

Contents

Technology and social media are changing the way UK students learn. More students than ever are relying on online tools and influencers for their studies, with eighty-three per cent of UK students thinking the use of digital technology makes learning more convenient (opens in a new tab).

UK students are increasingly turning to the use of social media influencers (SMIs) to help them study.

This is having a direct impact on how these students revise for exams. Schools and exam boards have long advised students to be cautious about the dubious claims of some educational SMIs, but this summer these warnings reached a new pitch. There were multiple reports (opens in a new tab) of students performing poorly due to the bogus advice of unqualified educational content creators.

Students’ reliance on predictive material is also growing: this year, Teacher Tapp found that 27 per cent of 4,500 UK teachers it surveyed had heard of pupils buying predicted papers (opens in a new tab), and also what they believed were leaked copies of upcoming exams.

Exam boards this year have explicitly called out the negative influence of educational SMIs. Examiners are seeing more and more similar exam scripts (including multiple candidates using the same arcane and unnecessarily complex vocabulary like “chremamorphism”), suggesting an outsized influence of a few, more popular SMIs. They are also warning that social media influencers’ recommendations can be detrimental to exam success. AQA, in their most recent exam report for GCSE English Literature, stated directly to students that “the comments [SMIs] make and advice they give is misleading and may actually hinder your chance of success (opens in a new tab)”.

According to Schools Week, the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) confirmed that it would be working with schools and colleges to take a “thorough look at the issue” and that it would “consider any appropriate action or advice needed ahead of future exam series (opens in a new tab)”.

Given the growing incidence of students using educational SMIs, Save My Exams has conducted further research, in collaboration with ITV, on the impact that the rise in untrustworthy academic influencers has on the academic attainment of UK students.

About the data

For this report, Save My Exams and ITV collaborated together to create a UK-based survey of 1,815 secondary school students. They were asked about their use of educational influencers on social media platforms to help them with their school work.

The key findings

Key findings

More than two-thirds (68%) of the students we surveyed use educational social media influencers to help with school work
Only 12% of students never use educational social media influencers
64% of students don’t check that the owners of these social media accounts are qualified teachers
More than a quarter (26%) of those students surveyed stated that they trust academic influencers more than their teachers
68% of students reported that their schools don’t warn them about revising online using unqualified content creators

Although there have been an increasing number of studies into students using technology for their school work, most of this research has focused on the use of AI tools like large language models, and typically, researchers have centred their studies on university students.

Therefore, the Save My Exams and ITV survey specifically sought to understand UK secondary-aged students’ use of educational content creators on social media. The survey had the following aims:

To understand the percentage of students who currently use educational social media influencers to help them with their school work
To determine how often UK students use educational influencers for revision and academic support
To discover whether students are checking the authority, credentials and qualifications of academic influencers online before listening to their guidance
To determine whether or not more students trust online academic influencers over their teachers

We found that the majority of UK students surveyed use educational SMIs to help with school work, and that 59 per cent of them are using these influencers either sometimes or often.

Our results also show that nearly two-thirds of students don’t check that the owners of these social media accounts are qualified teachers or tutors. Perhaps most worryingly, over a quarter of students trust educational SMIs more than they trust their teachers.

The Save My Exams and ITV survey also sought to investigate whether students were being given adequate tools to think critically about these influencers’ content. We wanted to find out whether students feel like they are given clear guidance and support when it comes to being warned about unqualified educational influencers. The results show they don’t: 68 per cent of the UK students we surveyed stated that their schools don’t warn them about revising online using unqualified content creators.

How many UK students are now turning to academic influencers for support?

Key findings

More than two-thirds (68%) of the students we surveyed use educational social media influencers to help with school work

The use of educational social media influencers is widespread among students in secondary schools. With more than two-thirds of students using academic content creators, the proportion of students using educational SMIs is comparable to the proportion of UK secondary school students using AI for their school work (opens in a new tab).

The risks of using education influencers for school work, and especially revision and exam preparation, are clear: students are likely to receive advice that is oversimplified, incomplete, or, in the worst cases, not aligned with exam requirements, as with the English Literature GCSE exams this summer (opens in a new tab).

Some of the most popular educational SMIs are very young and have no teaching or examining experience: as reported by The Times (opens in a new tab), some of the most popular educational influencers are current university students, have no formal teaching qualifications and yet offer “predictions” of upcoming exam content.

Following this kind of “quick win” advice risks students not being adequately prepared for the reality of GCSE or A Level exams: examiners can set questions of any topic on the syllabus at any time. As JCQ put it themselves: “Even the people who write exam questions can’t be certain which ones will be used and when. (opens in a new tab)”

The rise in popularity of academic influencers among UK school students

Key findings

41% of students sometimes use educational social media influencer content
Nearly one-fifth (18%) of secondary students often use influencers for academic support
Only 12% of students never use educational social media influencers

The Save My Exams and ITV survey found that 88 per cent of UK students we surveyed use content from educational influencers, and the majority of students are using SMIs sometimes or often.

The fact that one-fifth of UK secondary students use academic SMIs frequently tallies with what some of the GCSE exam boards are seeing in exam scripts. The AQA GCSE English Literature examiners' report states that “the influence of social media is even more apparent this year, with some comments verging on the ubiquitous and clearly from the same sources (opens in a new tab)”. AQA also warns against social-media “quick-win” exam tips, which often mean students are “recycling ideas and interpretations which they are not fully confident of using for their own interpretations (opens in a new tab)”.

This type of surface-level engagement that SMIs risk encouraging is far less successful than students having a thorough understanding of their syllabus, based on consistent revision using textbooks, school resources, and advice from trained professionals.

Are students checking the authority of academic influencers?

Key findings

64% of students don’t check that the owners of these social media accounts are qualified teachers

The majority of students Save My Exams and ITV surveyed stated that they don’t check that the SMIs they use have teaching qualifications.

Social media companies are doing little to protect young people from educational misinformation or disinformation. For example, TikTok's Community Guidelines (opens in a new tab) do not explicitly include background checks on educational content or creators. In short, anyone can become an academic influencer.

However, following so-called “educational” social media accounts can present even greater risks to young people. While many educational SMIs are qualified educational professionals — and even younger influencers can be seen as well-intentioned — there is another group of social media users who look to make money more fraudulently: either by stealing and leaking real papers, or purporting to sell “leaked” papers for sometimes hundreds of pounds per exam paper (opens in a new tab). Exam malpractice — which includes students photographing exam papers and attempting to sell them online — is increasing (opens in a new tab).

Over the last few years, leaked papers have become commonplace. In 2019 screenshots of an Edexcel A Level maths paper were leaked (opens in a new tab), while in 2022 an A Level chemistry paper was stolen from a Parcelforce van (opens in a new tab), and later shared on social media. This year, Cambridge International admitted (opens in a new tab) that questions from two A Level maths exams, and one Computer Science A Level, were leaked.

It is in this climate that scammers are able to sell fake GCSE and A Level papers (opens in a new tab). The punishment for sharing, selling or buying (even fake) exam papers is immediate disqualification.

How are academic influencers affecting the relationship between teachers and students?

Key findings

More than a quarter of those students surveyed (26%) stated that they trust academic influencers more than their teachers

While it is still the case that the majority of students trust their teachers more than educational SMIs, perhaps the most startling finding in the Save My Exams and ITV study was that over a quarter of students trust SMIs over their teachers.

Students are more and more likely to be influenced by content creators online: a study by Cyber Smarties, a social enterprise focused on online safety, found that 60% of teenagers reported being influenced by social media in their life choices and aspirations (opens in a new tab). The persuasive power of SMIs has also been shown to be potent: followers of SMIs are very likely to be influenced to follow an SMI’s recommendations because of the parasocial relationship created between the two (opens in a new tab), even if the follower doesn’t deeply engage with the SMI's content (opens in a new tab).

And recommendations from educational influencers can be harmful. As reported by Schools Week (opens in a new tab) and The Observer (opens in a new tab), an SMI called Waqar Malik, who posts under the handle “Mr Everything English” and has nearly 200,000 followers on TikTok, posted a video on 3 May (a week before the exams) on his YouTube Channel “predicting” the AQA GCSE English Literature questions. He was inaccurate. When users complained, he appeared to mock them (opens in a new tab). According to the Observer, another prominent educational content creator posting tips on GCSE English had been showing students an outdated GCSE mark scheme (opens in a new tab).

There is a real danger that the influence of academic SMIs undermines classroom authority and creates conflicting learning approaches. Students may prioritise viral study hacks over proven methods. This comes at a time when the relationship between teachers and students is already fractured, and trust in education professionals is being eroded, as Save My Exams found in a survey earlier this year.

Are schools doing enough to protect students from unqualified study influencers?

Key findings

68% of students reported that their schools don’t warn them about revising online using unqualified content creators

Our survey also found that students don’t feel they are being adequately supported to identify dubious advice, or false claims, from educational SMIs: more than two-thirds of students we polled said that their teachers and schools don’t warn them about the dangers of studying or revising based on advice from unqualified academic influencers.

Without proper digital literacy training, students are left unprepared to evaluate online revision sources critically. This in turn, means that they are falling prey to harmful advice, and even scammers.

Social media is here to stay, and students want to use it to help them study. They also trust the recommendations of social media influencers. In fact, the younger the user of social media, the more likely they are to trust influencers’ recommendations: a Statista survey found that one-third of Gen Z respondents expressed complete trust in SMIs (opens in a new tab), and are four times more likely to trust SMIs than are Baby Boomers.

Many educational influencers are financially motivated, and students are most interested in quick win tips and “predictive” material. Some educational SMIs with no formal teaching qualifications can make £5,000 per TikTok video (opens in a new tab). Another online platform, Krisstuition, sells “predicted papers” for between £1.99 for a single English GCSE paper to £11.99 for their “Science Bundle”.

But not all educational SMIs are producing harmful content. A good deal of highly useful content is being produced by education professionals with years of teaching and examining experience.

Even some forms of “predictive” content generated by online platforms can be highly valuable to students. In Maths, for example, content creators like Corbett Maths (opens in a new tab) produces “preparation papers”, while Dr Frost Maths (opens in a new tab) creates “likely papers”. Both platforms are highly credible, were created by teachers, and provide the kind of resources that both teachers and students can find valuable — crucially, they both contain clear disclaimers that their “predictive” content is only useful if students also ensure they have a solid understanding of the full syllabus. Save My Exams’ own TikTok channel (opens in a new tab) features content created by either ex-teachers and examiners with decades of professional experience, or by other hand-picked SMIs whose content is moderated by our expert team.

The key is to guide students on which SMIs and online platforms to use. Warnings against using unqualified influencers is helpful, but opening up a dialogue about which SMIs might be worth following, or even creating a list of “reliable” influencers and platforms, will help build trust and ensure that all online advice and guidance that students are accessing is valid and exam-aligned.

How students can protect their learning from unqualified influencers

Here at Save My Exams, we absolutely endorse the responsible use of online tools to help students with their learning and revision. Here are some key tips from our Senior Marketing Executive, and ex-teacher and examiner, Alexandra Brennan, on how to ensure the advice students are accessing is legitimate and helpful.

Tip	Reason
Check your sources	Always look at who is behind the content. Qualified teachers or tutors will usually make their credentials clear. If it’s hard to find, treat the advice with caution.
Cross-reference with trusted materials	Use school textbooks, exam board materials, or notes from class to confirm anything you learn online. If it doesn’t line up, double-check with a teacher.
Ask teachers about online advice	If you find a useful hack or technique online, discuss it in class. Teachers can confirm whether it’s accurate and aligned to your exam board.
Don’t forget the essentials	While social media is a great place for tips and recommendations, it can’t replace the fundamental job of revising the whole syllabus. This has to come first.
Be a critical thinker	Before trusting content, ask: Does this sound too good to be true? Does it explain “why” as well as “how”? Building this habit can help filter out misinformation.

Conclusions

Technology is here, and students are increasingly using it to help them with their studies. And this should be seen as a positive: a recent report by the Education Endowment Fund suggests that those working in education should be “excited (opens in a new tab)” by the opportunities technology offers to teaching and learning. A Maths teacher I spoke to said that accessing some of the “targeted” resources being produced online was “impossible really 20 years ago”.

However, as Sir Kevan Collins, the Chief Executive of the EEF states, “technology itself is unlikely to improve young people’s learning, but the pedagogy behind it can (opens in a new tab)”. The rise of technologies such as AI, and the use of educational SMIs, suggest that online tools are only going to become more popular, so it is vital that teachers, schools and educational leaders look at ways to curate learners’ online tools, and provide guidance on determining which accounts to follow, as some schools are already doing brilliantly.

It is clear from our report that many students don’t believe they are being given this guidance adequately, and recent research from Portsmouth University highlights the “damage” that misinformation shared by social media influencers can pose (opens in a new tab).

Therefore, it is vital that students are given instruction in digital literacy to combat this type of harmful influence. A report produced by Birmingham University and Newswise programme advocates making news and media literacy a mandatory component of the school curriculum (opens in a new tab). Similarly, a proposal from the University of Sheffield and the thinktank Centre for Young Lives for a mandatory “digital vaccination” for all UK students to tackle misinformation (opens in a new tab) is welcomed: to expect already-stretched teachers to create and deliver sessions is unrealistic, and risks furthering the digital divide that already exists in the UK (opens in a new tab).

The government could also seek to beef-up the recently rolled-out Online Safety Act to include this type of harm: there is currently no direct protection in the legislation against educational social media influencers (opens in a new tab) whose content is aimed at children. Social media companies also do not have any form of vetting process for this type of influencer, even though they are often selling directly to children.

If we empower our young people to use social media and technology responsibly and effectively, we not only enable them to achieve their potential academically, but also set them up to succeed in a changing digital economic landscape. As Anne Longfield CBE, Executive Chair of the Centre for Young Lives, has said, giving students the tools to harness the power of technology will open up “a world of opportunity” for them, and will allow the UK to become “a world-beating economy (opens in a new tab)”.