BETWEEN EMPOWERMENT AND COGNITIVE DEPENDENCY: HIGHER EDUCATION STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF GENERATIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN FOSTERING INDEPENDENT LEARNING WITHIN ISRAELI HIGHER EDUCATION
Jul 2026· European Journal of Education Studies· Vol 13· 0 citations· 22 references
TL;DR
The findings indicate that AI supports independent learning when the learner stays active and verifies, and that the guidance students request is the missing institutional condition.
Abstract
Generative AI has entered higher education faster than institutions have learned to guide it, and its effect on students' independence remains disputed. The present study asked how students in Israeli higher education perceive the role of AI in their formation as independent learners, a question the international literature has hardly examined in this national and linguistic context. A qualitative interpretive design was used, based on semi-structured interviews with thirty Arab students enrolled in Israeli institutions, conducted in Arabic around nineteen open-ended questions and analyzed through inductive thematic analysis with open coding and cross-question synthesis. Seven themes emerged. Participants framed AI as a supportive but non-substitutive academic assistant, used it widely for planning and time management, and reported gains in critical inquiry only where they verified its output, alongside clear warnings against passive reliance. Institutional guidance was described as thin, and students asked for training and boundaries rather than prohibition. Motivation rose as AI lowered difficulty, perceptions of geographical access were mixed, and integrity and dependency concerns cut across the interviews. The findings indicate that AI supports independent learning when the learner stays active and verifies, and that the guidance students request is the missing institutional condition.
This study explores how gifted Arab students in Israel who completed secondary school and are now studying at university perceive the long-term influence of digital and innovative teaching on their motivation, critical thinking, and academic independence. It uses a qualitative design and the reflexive thematic analysis of Braun and Clarke (2006, 2019), and draws on semi-structured interviews held in Arabic with thirty gifted students in Israeli universities and colleges. The findings suggest that the effects of digital teaching are more complex than commonly assumed. Digital tools supported students' motivation when they helped overcome learning barriers, but weakened it when students relied on quick answers instead of engaging in deeper learning. Critical thinking grew mainly from class discussion and questioning, not from the technology itself, although the students built a careful, critical way of using artificial intelligence. Academic independence developed more through students' real-life responsibilities than through any particular teaching method. The transition from Arabic-language schooling to studying in Hebrew influenced all three outcomes. Most importantly, the findings show that these three abilities are connected and should not be viewed as separate skills. The study concludes that technology helps students grow only as far as good teaching, the learner's own effort, and fair conditions allow.
Yasmeen Naamnih· European Journal of Educatio...· 0 citations
The study highlights the importance of integrating AI into ESP instruction through pedagogically sound practices supported by ethical guidance and digital literacy by providing context-specific insights that can inform the design of responsible, effective, and ethically grounded AI-enhanced ESP instruction.
D. Zulaiha, Yunika Triana· Journal of Educational Manag...· 0 citations
This article examines the enhancement of English as a foreign language learning at Universidad Politécnica de Querétaro in the context of generative artificial intelligence with a technopedagogical strategy based on a Socratic tutor aligned with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.
Juan Eduardo García Chávez, Alejandro García, Roberto Rafael Rodríguez Gómez et al.· 0 citations
A ten-step teaching framework for AI-supported creative interactive content design is proposed, aimed at fostering pedagogical innovation while preserving critical thinking, creativity, and student authorship.
Belén Mainer, Ana Pérez-Escoda· Education sciences· 0 citations
Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) can improve efficiency in academic work. However, it also raises a central psychological question: when AI helps produce a task, why do some learners still experience the final work as their own, whereas others experience it as polished but psychologically distant? This study examines psychological ownership and competency anxiety in AI-assisted learning, distinguishing between dependent AI outsourcing and reflective human–AI collaboration. An exploratory qualitative interview-based design with supplementary background information was used. The background form was used only for sample description and interview preparation, followed by in-depth interviews with 50 undergraduate and postgraduate students from five Chinese universities, interviews with 10 faculty members and administrators, and 128 student critical incident records. Data were analyzed through a hybrid deductive–inductive thematic analysis, with NVivo 14 used as a supporting tool for code management and matrix comparison. In participants’ accounts, dependent AI outsourcing was associated with weaker psychological ownership, described in terms of reduced cognitive and authorial presence during planning, reasoning, and revision. This weakened sense of ownership was, in turn, linked to shallow memory, difficulty explaining an individual’s work, reduced meaning-making, and stronger competency anxiety. Reflective human–AI collaboration, by contrast, was associated with retained ownership when students planned before using GenAI, evaluated AI output, revised it in their own voice, and could explain their final decisions. Perceived educational support, including feedback, clear AI-use guidance, and psychologically safe learning environments, was described as helping students treat AI use as a learnable practice rather than a hidden shortcut. Faculty and administrators also framed these patterns as issues of assessment feasibility, workload, policy clarity, and curriculum design, rather than solely as student choice. Because the data were collected at five Chinese universities, the proposed model is presented as context-sensitive: the observed dynamics may be amplified where assessment is strongly product-oriented, formative feedback is constrained, and AI use is difficult to discuss openly. This study contributes to psychological ownership theory by extending it to human–AI interaction and proposing that, in this setting, ownership depends on cognitive and authorial presence rather than solely on task completion.
The increasing integration of generative artificial intelligence (AI) into higher education is reshaping knowledge acquisition and academic learning processes. While existing scholarship emphasizes AI-enabled educational opportunities, limited attention has examined how sustained engagement with generative AI restructures students’ epistemic relationships with knowledge, particularly within underrepresented African higher education contexts. This study investigates the relationship between ChatGPT utilization and epistemic dependency among university students in Burundi and Sierra Leone using a sequential explanatory mixed-methods comparative design integrating survey data from 452 students and qualitative interviews. Findings indicate that increased ChatGPT utilization is associated with heightened algorithmic reliance, declining verification practices, and reduced independent inquiry behaviors. Comparative evidence further demonstrates that epistemic dependency remains institutionally contingent rather than technologically uniform. The study advances scholarship on AI-mediated learning by conceptualizing generative AI as an emerging epistemic intermediary influencing knowledge validation process within digitally transforming higher education environments.
T. Marah· Journal of International Stu...· 0 citations