Get started
Work

Generative AI in L2 English Academic Writing: University Students’ Perspectives on Autonomy and Human–AI Interaction

Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tools are widely reported to improve writing quality and efficiency, yet their implications for autonomy, defined here as volitional, informed, and self-endorsed decision-making, remain underexplored. Drawing on an integrated Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and Sociocultural Theory (SCT) framework, this study interviewed twenty second-language (L2) English learners in Hong Kong universities about how they perceive and report their interaction practices when using GenAI in L2 academic writing. Hybrid inductive/deductive thematic analysis of the interview data yielded six themes: selective and strategic deployment of GenAI; concerns about dependency; preservation of authorial voice; perceived benefits; critical evaluation of outputs; and awareness of institutional expectations. Learners described balancing efficiency against authentic authorship, editing or reframing AI-generated text to protect their voice, and treating GenAI as a peripheral rather than primary agent. From these reported practices we derived a heuristic of seven roles that learners ascribed to GenAI: text analyst, consultant, literature search/review instrument, tutor, creative aid, adversary, and conversational partner. Implications are drawn for pedagogy that treats GenAI as a mediational tool whose contributions must be subordinated to the writer’s own intellectual agenda.
DOI: 10.58304/ijts.261120
Language: English
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7225102414
FWCI:
Cites: 20
Cited by:
Related to: 10