Human-AI collaboration in academic writing: Exploring university students’ agency through a sociocultural lens

Framed through Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory and a metacognitive lens, this research investigates university students’ reflections on utilizing AI (specifically ChatGPT) to support academic writing development. Drawing on 37 written reflections from undergraduates across diverse majors at a national university in Qatar, thematic analysis was employed to gain nuanced insights into students’ critical engagement with generative AI. Six themes emerged, namely textual quality, collaborative synergy, iterative support, cognitive engagement, learner motivation, and ethical awareness, highlighting ChatGPT’s potential to enhance both linguistic development and metacognitive growth when writing instruction is appropriately anchored and scaffolded. Students’ reflections and selective integration of AI outputs demonstrated authorial agency, positioning the chatbot as a co-participant in the writing process. The study contributes to evolving discussions on AI in education and advocates for moving beyond polarized AI debates towards a post-process, recursive, and ethically grounded model of AI-integrated writing pedagogy. • Framed through Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory and a metacognitive lens, the study explores university students’ reflections on utilizing AI to support academic writing development. • AI tools challenge academic writing in the traditional sense of authorship and originality. • AI-integrated writing pedagogy should move beyond polarized AI debates towards a post-process, recursive, and ethically grounded model. • A dialogic, reflective pedagogy fosters critical engagement with AI in writing. • Students’ reflections and selective integration of AI outputs demonstrate authorial agency. • Students use ChatGPT as a co-participant for idea generation and language polishing. • Although ethical concerns are present, it is crucial to acknowledge AI's potential in enhancing writing instruction if it is properly anchored and scaffolded.