Agentivism: a learning theory for the age of artificial intelligence

TL;DR

Agentivism is a new learning theory addressing how human capability develops through selective AI delegation, emphasizing internalization and transfer despite AI's expanding role in learning processes.

Contribution

It introduces Agentivism, a novel framework explaining durable human learning in the context of pervasive AI assistance, filling gaps left by traditional learning theories.

Findings

Agentivism clarifies how learning persists with AI support.

It emphasizes internalization and transfer in AI-assisted learning.

The theory explains durable growth in human capability despite AI delegation.

Abstract

Learning theories have historically changed when the conditions of learning evolved. Generative and agentic AI create a new condition by allowing learners to delegate explanation, writing, problem solving, and other cognitive work to systems that can generate, recommend, and sometimes act on the learner's behalf. This creates a fundamental challenge for learning theory: successful performance can no longer be assumed to indicate learning. Learners may complete tasks effectively with AI support while developing less understanding, weaker judgment, and limited transferable capability. We argue that this problem is not fully captured by existing learning theories. Behaviourism, cognitivism, constructivism, and connectivism remain important, but they do not directly explain when AI-assisted performance becomes durable human capability. We propose Agentivism, a learning theory for human-AI interaction. Agentivism defines learning as durable growth in human capability through selective delegation to AI, epistemic monitoring and verification of AI contributions, reconstructive internalization of AI-assisted outputs, and transfer under reduced support. The importance of Agentivism lies in explaining how learning remains possible when intelligent delegation is easy and human-AI interaction is becoming a persistent and expanding part of human learning.