Influence of Artificial Intelligence Writing Assistants on Undergraduate Students’ Traditional Reading Habits in Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike, Abia State, Nigeria

Abstract

This paper examined the influence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) writing assistants on undergraduate students’ traditional reading habits at Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike (MOUAU). Four specific objectives were outlined and fulfilled by adopting the mixed-method research design of descriptive survey, interview schedule, and observation technique. For the descriptive survey, 395 undergraduate students were sampled through the proportionate stratified sampling technique and the snowball sampling method. A questionnaire instrument developed by the researchers was used to collect data for the study. For the interview schedule, 33 undergraduate students, drawn proportionally from each of the eleven sample strata, were interviewed, and their responses were transcribed subjectively. To execute the observation technique, the researchers used the SciSpace AI Detector to conduct a content-matching test on 97 class assignment papers from year-three students and 19 project works from year-four students.

The triangulation method, novel to this research, generated quantitative and qualitative data that showed a massive dependence among undergraduate students on AI writing assistants to the detriment of traditional reading. There is a strong influence of AI writing assistants on traditional reading habits, as many undergraduate students prefer to search through AI writing Apps for specific content to download and copy-paste into their work, rather than undertake the traditional reading route of patiently tracing, assimilating, and writing new knowledge. The widespread use and preference for AI writing assistants by undergraduate students, basically in a copy-and-paste direction, have farreaching effects on education in Nigeria. The study recommended, among other things, the need for the articulation and enforcement of policies that will ensure that productive AI writing assistants are used in controlled ways, thereby checking the reckless dependence of undergraduate students on AI writing assistants, especially as such Apps emerge every day.