# The impact of artificial intelligence perception on university students' academic engagement: the mediating role of academic motivation and the moderating role of academic self-efficacy

## TL;DR

This study explores how university students' views on AI affect their academic engagement, with motivation and self-efficacy playing key roles.

## Contribution

The study identifies academic motivation as a mediator and academic self-efficacy as a moderator in the relationship between AI perception and academic engagement.

## Key findings

- AI perception was negatively associated with academic engagement.
- Academic motivation partially mediated the relationship between AI perception and engagement.
- Academic self-efficacy moderated both the direct and indirect associations.

## Abstract

To test whether academic motivation mediates the association between artificial intelligence (AI) perception and university students' academic engagement, and whether academic self-efficacy moderates the direct and indirect associations.

Cross-sectional, single-wave, self-administered questionnaire survey; all variables were assessed once at a single time point in a convenience sample of university students in Anhui, China.

A convenience sample of 1,484 university students in Anhui Province completed an anonymous questionnaire measuring AI perception, academic engagement, academic motivation, and academic self-efficacy. Descriptive statistics, correlations, and regression-based mediation and moderated mediation analyses were conducted.

AI-related perceptions were negatively associated with academic engagement, and academic motivation partially mediated this association. Academic self-efficacy moderated both the direct association and the indirect pathway via motivation: when self-efficacy was lower, the negative association between AI-related perceptions and engagement was stronger and the motivation–engagement association was weaker; when self-efficacy was higher, the opposite pattern emerged, and the indirect effect via motivation was stronger.

AI-related perceptions were inversely associated with academic engagement partly through academic motivation, and these associations varied by academic self-efficacy. Given the cross-sectional, self-report design, the findings are correlational and require longitudinal or experimental verification.