How AI use shapes university students’ cognitive engagement and critical thinking: The mediating role of self-regulated learning
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Abstract
AI application in higher education: a cognitive irony As the application of artificial intelligence (AI) to higher education swiftly increases, an intellectual ironysurfaces: Although it may create new ways to offer a range of personal support for learners during their studying processes that are almost inconceivable previously; unregulated usage, without appropriate support, on the other hand may diminish independent analyzing skills of the learners. In this paper we aimed to analyze how application of the AI on the process of studying influences the cognitive process engagement and critical thinking skills of the university students and investigated the mediate function of selfregulated learning (SRL). Research design was quantitatively. Survey questionnaire has distributed to 384 students of university. Data was analyzed with method of partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) with using 5,000 subsamples bootstrap procedure for estimating significance. The results confirm that model posited in the present study is with satisfactory predictive relevance explaining 67.8% of variance (R2 =0.678) in cognitive engagement and 64.2% of variance (R2 =0.642) in critical thinking skills. Our results also support excellent structural fit (SRMR =0.038, NFI=0.934) and large effect size of the total effect of the construct in the total path (.482). In addition, mediation analysis reports that Self-Regulated Learning mediate strongly influence of AI usage on critical thinking skills (e IE=0.346, p¡0.001, 95% BCa CI [0.281,0.418]),hence demonstrating that when effectively under pinned by strong self-regulated learning(SRL) the application of AI has effectively created a sophisticated and adaptable cognitive scaffolding which can reinforce independent critical thought processes rather than undermines the development of the processes
Keywords:
Self-Regulated Learing Critical Thinking Congnitive Engagement Educational Managment PLS-SEMReferences
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