#389: The Impact of AI on the Process of Learning to Write

As generative AI becomes part of academic and professional writing, understanding how it mediates students’ writing processes is critical for the learning sciences. This study examines engineering students’ reflections on one such integration in an upper-division writing course in spring 2025. Drawing on sociocultural perspectives and the writer(s)-within-community model, we examine how students engage with AI through agency, self-regulation, and AI literacy. Researchers analyzed students’ reflections and found three categories of use patterns: intentional users, minimalists, and offloaders. Each of these types of use reflected different levels of agency and self-regulation in the use of AI tools. We also see evidence that regular reflection supported both self-regulation and AI literacy. We discuss implications for designing AI-integrated writing instruction that promotes agentic and critically informed use.