Generative AI in Education: fostering Critical Thinking or Promoting Dependency? /
La IA generativa en la educación: ¿fomento del pensamiento crítico o fomento de la dependencia?
Aug 2026· Infancia y Aprendizaje· 0 citations· 33 references
TL;DR
The findings show that GenAI supports critical thinking when embedded in structured learning activities that require students to question, evaluate, and revise AI-generated content, and highlight the importance of designing AI-supported learning environments that position AI outputs as objects of reasoning rather than sources of answers.
Abstract
This scoping review examines how generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools such as ChatGPT are used in educational contexts and how their use influences students’ critical thinking. A systematic search of four databases (Scopus, Web of Science, ERIC, and IEEE Xplore), followed by screening and eligibility assessment, identified 25 empirical studies published between 2022 and 2025. The findings show that GenAI supports critical thinking when embedded in structured learning activities that require students to question, evaluate, and revise AI-generated content. Tasks such as debate, error detection, and guided writing revision consistently promote analytical reasoning and reflection. In contrast, unstructured use often leads to passive acceptance of AI outputs and reduced cognitive engagement. To account for this divergence, the review proposes the Task–Mediation–Internalisation (TMI) model, which conceptualises AI as a mediational stimulus within a Vygotskian developmental process. Within this system, critical thinking emerges through socially mediated interaction and potentially becomes internalised through repeated meaningful engagement. The findings highlight the importance of designing AI-supported learning environments that position AI outputs as objects of reasoning rather than sources of answers.
The Cognitive Impact Taxonomy (CIT) provides a structured approach for assessing Gen-AI’s influence on fluid and crystallized intelligence, key cognitive processes, and the trajectory of cognitive impacts leading to severity assessment, and the Integrated Cognitive Symbiosis Framework (ICSF) introduces a three-layer governance model to support responsible and cognitively healthy Gen-AI adoption.
K. Vidanage, M.J. Marapperuma, Shakya Dissanayake et al.· Davao Research Journal· 0 citations
It is suggested that AI can enhance drafting, revision, and feedback processes, improving coherence, metacognition, and writing confidence, however, these benefits are accompanied by persistent concerns regarding ethical ambiguity, inconsistent policy guidance, and insufficient faculty training.
Samira Dichari, Fadi Jaber· Journal of Education and Tra...· 0 citations
One of the first comprehensive syntheses of AI integration across the entire CAR cycle is offered, linking it explicitly to critical-thinking development within a reflective, teacher-led inquiry framework, an intersection that remains underexplored in the extant literature.
Yusriani Yusriani, Andi Yuyung· ETDC: Indonesian Journal of...· 0 citations
A context-bounded interpretive framework is proposed suggesting that GenAI’s educational value depends on instructional and governance conditions that preserve autonomy, critical thinking, integrity, and equity.
Mayra Álvarez-Jiménez, Geovanny Cudco, Diego Gamboa et al.· Computers· 0 citations
This systematic review synthesises empirical and conceptual evidence on university pedagogical practices that cultivate critical thinking and, through it, student intellectual autonomy in digitally mediated learning environments and identifies gaps concerning long-term transfer, equity, and the assessment of autonomy in AI-saturated contexts.
Mayra Carolina Márquez López, Daniela Guardo Rua, Hugo Leonardo Gómez Hernández et al.· Journal of Intelligent Decis...· 0 citations
The rise of generative artificial intelligence presents unprecedented challenges and opportunities for EFL learners' writing instruction, especially when students are required to express technical concepts, experimental processes, and research arguments in advanced engineering fields such as electromagnetic waves, antennas, propagation, and radiofrequency systems. This technological shift enables students to organize engineering information with professional linguistic structures more effectively, fostering the specialized communicative competence required in academic and technical writing contexts. Traditional teaching models centered on language correction and model essay imitation have seen their efficacy diminish in the face of AIGC, potentially fostering intellectual passivity in students. This study aims to construct an AIGC-enabled teaching model for EFL learners' writing, centered on a “Questioning-Dialectic- Reconstructing” cycle. This model positions AIGC as a “thinking partner” and “dialectical opponent”, systematically integrating it into the pre-writing, drafting, and revision stages of the writing process. It guides students in transforming from passive content consumers into active and discerning knowledge constructors. The paper elaborates on the theoretical foundation, three-stage operational procedure, and supportive assessment system of the model, demonstrating its application through concrete instructional cases involving engineering-oriented writing tasks. The goal is to provide a theoretical model and practical guidelines for transforming writing pedagogy toward critical thinking in the AIGC era.