Comparing Epistemic Emotions and User Experience Across Two AI Instructional Designs in Biology Learning

This pilot study investigates how two distinct AI instructional designs shape undergraduate students’ epistemic emotions and user experience in biology education. Students interacted with either an AI-Tutor that provided structured conceptual guidance or an AI-Navigator that incorporated an uncertainty-centered instructional approach designed to strategically raise, maintain, and reduce conceptual, procedural, and epistemic uncertainty. After completing a biology lab quiz, students completed the Epistemically-Related Emotions Scales (EES) and several user-experience items. AI-Tutor users reported significantly higher enjoyment, perceived helpfulness, AI preference, and future use intention; while AI-Navigator users showed more varied epistemic-emotion profiles, including slightly elevated confusion. Drawing on Control–Value Theory and the ERAS (Emotion Regulation in Achievement Situations) model, these findings highlight a design tension, which is that systems that enhance perceived control tend to produce more positive epistemic emotions and user experiences, compared to the systems that introduce epistemic friction in the short term.