High-achieving students describe selective AI use for clarification, summarisation, and workflow support while verifying outputs and keeping them subordinate to their own judgment¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r1 · q1
Currency · newest study 2026 · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q1 i? Reflexive thematic analysis of open-ended responses identified four prominent themes: conditional usefulness, verification as part of the work, fear of cognitive substitution, and successful-student identity under pressure. → Jason Zagami 2026

Evidence¶

Jason Zagami 2026¶

Jason Zagami. (2026). Guarded adoption of generative AI in higher education: high-achieving students, successful-student identity, and epistemic agency in a single-university mixed-methods survey. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education 23:47. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-026-00625-6

q1 · i? · associational · r1

Reflexive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) of four open-ended survey questions, coded manually by the author. Student quotes illustrate bounded use, e.g. using AI like a tutor "As long as you're confirming accuracy" while synthesis remains "solely my own".

"The qualitative analysis suggests not blanket distrust, nor straightforward rejection, but a more complex effort to keep AI useful while preventing it from becoming epistemically dominant. Four themes were especially prominent: conditional usefulness, verification as part of the work, fear of cognitive substitution, and successful-student identity under pressure."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

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