Agentic education · Learning science

Actionable companion · Motivation & engagement

Learning with agency: Effect of GenAI Dependency on University Students’ Academic Achievement: The Mediating Role of Self-Efficacy and Moderating Role of Perceived Teacher Caring

AI-assisted editorial implementation guide, separate from the original research. Proposed actions are not claims or recommendations attributed to the source authors. No independent peer review of this guide is asserted.

Read original paperSearch paper agentCC BY 4.0

Evidence and context

Title and abstract screening; stage labels describe reported settings, not verified numerical ages. Design labels require full-text appraisal. Reported stage(s): Higher education. Verify the participant population and task before transferring the findings.

Original authors’ abstract, reproduced under the linked source license:

Abstract Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) holds significant potential to enhance university students’ learning. However, over-reliance on it to complete academic tasks poses a risk to academic achievement by potentially encouraging cognitive outsourcing. Despite this growing concern and an expanding body of research on GenAI usage, the mechanisms through which GenAI dependency and perceived teacher caring affect their academic achievement and self-efficacy remain underexplored. Based on the theory of media system dependence, this study explores the mechanisms through which university students’ dependency on GenAI affects their academic outcomes, focusing on the mediating role of self-efficacy and moderating role of perceived teacher caring. A survey was conducted with 418 university students from Chinese public universities who had used GenAI for an extended period. The results revealed that GenAI dependency positively predicts false self-efficacy and negatively predicts academic achievement, exhibiting a significant Dunning–Kruger effect. Perceived teacher caring moderates the relationship between GenAI dependency and self-efficacy. High perceived teacher caring mitigates the Dunning–Kruger effect but has a weak moderating effect on academic achievement. These findings enhance the explanatory power of the media system dependency theory in educational contexts and reveal the pathways through which GenAI dependency and teacher caring affect learning processes and outcomes. This study expands the theoretical implications of teacher caring in the digital age and provides empirical evidence to aid higher education administrators in optimising AI governance and teachers in improving instructional interventions. Keywords: GenAI dependency, perceived teacher caring, media system dependency, self-efficacy, academic achievement

What kind of evidence is this?

Supporting AI learning science · Survey / observational study

Stage: Higher education. Screening labels describe reported context and study-design language. They are not a risk-of-bias rating or proof of effectiveness for an age band.

Study methods · source passage

The participants comprised full-time undergraduate students from multiple universities in Liaoning Province, China, who frequently utilized generative GenAI in their studies. Stratified random sampling was used to select participants across diverse genders, academic years, and disciplinary backgrounds to ensure sample representativeness. This study strictly adhered to the ethical guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki. All participation was voluntary, with written informed consent obtained prior to data collection.

Limitations and uncertainty · source passage

This study had several limitations. First, this study may be limited by its sample selection, as all participants were recruited from Chinese universities. The Chinese educational culture, which emphasizes respect for teachers and traditional hierarchies, may have shaped the moderating role of teacher caring observed in this study, characterized predominantly by guidance and responsibility. This cultural context could affect the generalizability of the findings to other educational settings. Therefore, future research should include participants from diverse cultural backgrounds and extend to different educational stages to examine the cultural specificity and stability of teacher caring’s moderating effect between GenAI dependency and academic achievement, thereby enhancing the cross-cultural applicability of the research model.

Design the system before the pilot

Use this study to inform a learning mechanism or implementation question. It is not direct evidence that autonomous agents improve learning. Keep the proposed agent behavior separate from what the source actually tested.

  • Measure engagement separately from achievement. Check whether novelty-driven participation persists and whether it translates to independent performance.

A 90-day district pilot

  1. Days 1–15 · Appraise. Have the curriculum lead and a teacher read the methods and limitations. Record the study design, sample, comparator, outcomes and evidence gaps. Define a local question that the study can help inform.
  2. Days 16–30 · Design. Choose one disciplinary task. Require a first attempt, a documented AI consultation, a critique of the output and an independent explanation. Align the comparison group and scoring rubric with the same objective. Name an accountable owner and set the baseline, success threshold and budget before implementation.
  3. Days 31–60 · Test. Start with a small voluntary cohort, preserve an accessible non-AI route and require teacher review. Use synthetic or de-identified examples; approve data handling and tool terms through district processes.
  4. Days 61–90 · Decide. Blind-score reasoning and accuracy on a new task without AI. Distinguish model examination scores, student perceptions and actual learner gains; only the last directly tests educational benefit. Compare with baseline, document uncertainty and stop or revise if learning worsens, access is unequal or critical errors persist.

The board decision brief

Report the learning problem, evidence quality, participating population, total cost including review time, measured benefit, errors, access differences and remaining uncertainties. Make a dated recommendation to stop, revise or expand. A positive perception survey alone does not establish learning improvement.

Attribution and reuse

Wenxiu Jia; Li Pan; Siobhan Neary. Effect of GenAI Dependency on University Students’ Academic Achievement: The Mediating Role of Self-Efficacy and Moderating Role of Perceived Teacher Caring. Behavioral Sciences (2025-10-02). https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15101348

Companion prepared 2026-10-30. Original authorship and DOI are preserved. The abstract is an attributed source extract; the implementation plan is new AI-assisted editorial material, offered under the same CC BY 4.0 license. This guide has not undergone independent peer review.