Influence of AI-Powered Assistant Tools on Students' Engagement and Critical Thinking in Curriculum Learning in University of Port Harcourt
Abstract
The rapid integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered assistant tools into higher education has generated significant scholarly interest, particularly regarding their influence on student engagement and the development of critical thinking skills. This study investigated the influence of AI-powered assistant tools on students' engagement and critical thinking in curriculum learning within the Faculty of Education, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design; the study targeted a population of 1,406 students from the 2022 and 2023 academic sets. A sample of 343 respondents was selected through purposive, simple random, and proportional stratified random sampling techniques. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire titled (IAATSECQ) with eight items each. Also, an AI assisted quiz was administered via Google Forms. The reliability of the instrument using Cronbach’s alpha was 0.751. Descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) were used to answer research questions, while independent samples t-tests were employed to test the hypotheses at a 0.05 significance level. Findings revealed that AI-powered tools significantly enhanced students' engagement. Gender was found to significantly influence engagement (z = 2.985, p = 0.003), with female students demonstrating higher engagement levels. Age significantly influenced critical thinking (z = 5.365, p = 0.000), with younger students (18–25 years) recording higher critical thinking scores than older students (26–35 years). The study concludes that AI-powered assistant tools are effective instruments for enhancing academic engagement and critical thinking in Nigerian higher education, and recommends the institutionalization of AI literacy programmes and differentiated AI integration strategies that are responsive to students' gender and age characteristics.