Exploring the Nexus of Students' Attitudes Toward AI in Academic Tasks and Academic Integrity Awareness: A Mixed-Methods Study

The widespread adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI), with its high accessibility, has led to a significant rise in its use in academia, raising significant concerns related to academic integrity, which is imperative for promoting sustainable learning practices. However, there is a critical need for studies exploring students’ attitudes toward AI in relation to academic integrity awareness. This study aimed to examine higher education students’ attitudes and academic integrity awareness regarding AI use in academic tasks and explore their correlation. Moreover, this study utilizes the Theory of Planned Behavior. A convergent parallel mixed-methods design, including a questionnaire (n = 248) and a focus group discussion (n = 8), was employed. The findings revealed that students had positive attitudes but low academic integrity awareness related to AI use in academia. Moreover, they showed a positive but weak relationship between these variables. This indicates that the more students are exposed to descriptions of “ethical AI use” that decrease violations of academic integrity, the more likely they are to utilize AI in academia. Additionally, it suggests that factors other than integrity awareness might play a bigger role in shaping students’ attitudes. Recommendations and implications are discussed.