EXPLORING THE IMPACT OF AI WRITING TOOLS ON INDEPENDENT WRITING SKILLS
Keywords:
Academic Writing, AI-Assisted Writing, Creativity, Independent Writing Skills, Learner Autonomy, Writing ConfidenceAbstract
The rapidly growing usage of Artificial Intelligence (AI) writing assistants such as ChatGPT, Grammarly, Gemini, and Microsoft Editor has remotely impacted the scholarly writing behaviors of university students. The current study intends to examine the effect of the usage of AI-written assistants on independent writing competence, creativity, and autonomy among students at the International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI). The study intends to examine students’ attitudes toward AI-written assistants, their impact on scholarly writing competence and creativity, and the differences in essays written with and without the aid of AI-written assistants. This is an important study, as it will offer a perspective on the prudent usage of AI in Pakistani higher education and will help in balancing the support of AI with the autonomy of students and usefulness of educational processes. A qualitative case study approach was employed in this study, whereby the findings will be generated by the collective responses of the surveys undertaken by the students, the essay-writing task undertaken separately with and without the aid of AI-written assistants, and the interviews of students. This issue is supported by the Constructivist Theory of learning, as it believes that AI-written assistants can be a mediating tool in the educational process that may either positively or negatively impact an educational outcome. The findings of this issue indicate that AI-written assistants positively impact grammatical correctness, vocabulary, and fluencies, and an unhealthy dependence on the assistants negatively limits originality, creativity, and autonomy among students, and thus there is a need to balance the usage of AI-written assistants in the scholarly writing of students.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Arooba Manahil, Faizyab Anwar, Laiba Hussain, Kaukab Saba (Author)
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