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'AI-Learner Partnership': Psychological mechanisms and developmental trajectories of EFL learners' writing agency in GenAI-assisted courses

This study explores how EFL learners construct, negotiate, and develop writing agency through engagement with generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in second language writing courses. GenAI is conceptualized as a cultural mediational means within an integrated sociocultural and positive psychological framework. Eleven Chinese EFL university students were followed over a 16-week semester as they completed multiple academic writing tasks with GenAI support. Drawing on a qualitative multi-method design, data w…

By the Truvace desk1 min read1 sourcePeer-reviewedTRV-2026-1660· cite & verify
'AI-Learner Partnership': Psychological mechanisms and developmental trajectories of EFL learners' writing agency in GenAI-assisted courses
"Dzaleu Students Learning Ewondo Language Classroom" by Clemms78 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.

In brief

Researchers followed eleven Chinese university students studying English as a foreign language through a full semester of academic writing tasks supported by generative AI. Using interviews, screen recordings and reflective journals, they traced how learners' sense of agency in writing changed over time.

The work matters because it frames writing agency as something that develops through context, task design and psychological resources, not as a fixed trait. With only eleven participants and a qualitative design, it describes a process but does not establish how widely the pattern holds.

Main points

  1. The study followed eleven Chinese EFL university students across a 16-week semester.
  2. Data came from semi-structured interviews, screen recordings of writing sessions and reflective journals.
  3. Agency developed in three non-linear phases: initial exploration, strategic adaptation and deliberate appropriation.
  4. Cognitive processes, affective experiences, positive psychological resources and task design features jointly shaped how learners used the tool.

The gain

Over a 16-week course, the eleven students moved from reliance on AI output toward selective, task-based use and a more agentic techno-authorial identity, with strengthened writing-specific psychological capital.

The rundown

In the first phase, initial exploration, learners showed novelty-driven engagement, dependency on AI output and emergent self-efficacy. This stage reflects early reliance on the tool before learners had developed strategies of their own.

In strategic adaptation, learners used GenAI more selectively and in line with the task, while building writing-specific psychological capital. In the final phase, deliberate appropriation, they integrated GenAI into personal writing workflows.

The authors combined sociocultural accounts of mediated action with positive psychology, treating GenAI as a cultural mediational means. They use this to describe how learners negotiate assistance, authorship and autonomy.

Sources

  1. Peer-reviewedActa Psychologica2026-10-16

The debate