The Reliance Negotiation Framework: A Dynamic Process Model of Student LLM Engagement in Academic Writing

TL;DR

The paper introduces the Reliance Negotiation Framework (RNF), a dynamic model explaining how students continuously negotiate their engagement with large language models in academic writing based on multiple inputs.

Contribution

It develops a novel, comprehensive process model of student LLM reliance that accounts for variability, ethical considerations, and recursive decision-making, filling gaps in existing frameworks.

Findings

RNF predicts student reliance behavior across tasks.

The model accounts for ethical commitments that can halt negotiation.

Implications for AI literacy, policy, and equity are discussed.

Abstract

Student engagement with large language models (LLMs) in academic writing is not a stable trait, an adoption decision, or a competency level; it is a continuously negotiated process that existing frameworks cannot adequately theorize. Typological models provide categories without mechanisms; technology acceptance models explain adoption but not post-adoption quality; AI literacy frameworks treat competency as a static predictor rather than a live input. None accounts for within-student variability across tasks, the developmental paradox whereby experience produces habituation rather than sophistication, or principled non-use as a form of ethical reasoning. This article introduces the Reliance Negotiation Framework (RNF), developed from a sequential explanatory mixed-methods study of 382 undergraduates at a public minority-serving institution in the United States (survey, N = 382; 14 semi-structured interviews; three qualitative survey strands; 1,435 coded instances). The RNF reconceptualizes LLM reliance as an ongoing negotiation among four concurrent inputs (perceived benefits, perceived risks, ethical commitments, and situational demands) with outputs that recursively modify subsequent decisions. A Two-Model Architecture accommodates the 13.0% of participants whose categorical ethical commitments foreclose negotiation entirely. The framework generates four falsifiable predictions with implications for AI literacy pedagogy, academic integrity policy, and equity-centered practice at minority-serving institutions.