Agency erosion appeared in 88% of student essays, most often as erosion of independent effort¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · qualitativer2·q2
Currency · newest study 2026 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · recheck by 2031: baselines and conditions change
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
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the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q2 i? Agency surfaced in 43 of 49 essays (88%), most often as an erosion of independent effort. → Lucile Favero 2026
Evidence¶
Lucile Favero 2026¶
Lucile Favero, Juan Antonio Pérez-Ortiz, Tanja Käser, Nuria Oliver. (2026). From Substitution to Scaffolding: Breaking the Self-Reinforcing Harm Cycle of AI in Education (and Beyond). arXiv preprint. https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.17451 doi:10.48550/arxiv.2608.17451
q2 · i? · qualitative · r2
Thematic coding of the 49-essay corpus: "Agency surfaced in 43 of 49 essays (88%), most often as an erosion of independent effort." One student reflected that they did not feel the need to engage their brain because AI would do the task faster and better.
"Agency surfaced in 43 of 49 essays (88%), most often as an erosion of independent effort."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- An independent human second coder reached moderate agreement (kappa = 0.395) with the AI-assisted primary coding on the five-category outcome — related
- Emotion was the rarest essay theme, raised ambivalently by a minority of students — related
- 80% of IB student essays explicitly link reliance on AI to reduced thinking — related
- Pseudo-agency: students may appear engaged without understanding the epistemic purpose of their actions — related
- Most student essays remained at a descriptive reflection level despite repeated AI feedback — related
- Students framed AI as replacement rather than scaffolding in 48 of 49 essays — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
agency-erosion-in-88-percent-of-essays |
title |
Agency erosion appeared in 88% of student essays, most often as erosion of independent effort |
description |
Agency erosion appeared in 88% of student essays, most often as erosion of independent effort |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
weak |
newest_evidence |
2026 |
recheck_by |
2031 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-11 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — lucile-favero-2026 |
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