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Indonesian English students use AI to write but worry about fake citations

Study title: ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF USING AI TOOLS IN ACADEMIC WRITING: A CASE STUDY

A small qualitative case study at Institut Pendidikan Indonesia asked ten undergraduates training to be English teachers how they use AI tools when writing academic papers. Participants answered an open-ended online questionnaire, and their responses were coded into themes.

Read the study abstract

The integration of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has significantly altered academic writing practices in higher education, yet its pedagogical implications for pre-service English teachers remain underexplored. This qualitative case study aimed to investigate English Education students' perceptions of utilizing AI tools in academic writing, specifically examining perceived benefits, operational challenges, and academic integrity negotiations. Ten undergraduate students, comprising eight eighth-semester…

By the Truvace desk1 min read1 sourceEvidence: Emerging · 37/100 — Interviews or qualitative study · n = 10 · 1 independent sourcePeer-reviewedTRV-2026-2358· cite & verify
ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF USING AI TOOLS IN ACADEMIC WRITING: A CASE STUDY
Essays and essay-writing : based on Atlantic monthly models by Tanner, William Maddux. Public domain
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P 49The P score combines the specificity and measured human impact of the grounded problem claim with the strength of this Trace’s cited sources.

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G 48The G score combines the specificity and measured human impact of the grounded gain claim with the strength of this Trace’s cited sources.

In brief

The study matters because these students will soon teach writing themselves, so their habits and attitudes may shape classroom practice. With only ten participants from one institution, the results describe their views rather than showing how AI affects writing quality or learning outcomes.

Main points

  1. The participants were ten undergraduates: eight eighth-semester and two sixth-semester students.
  2. Students mainly used AI for brainstorming, outlining, and grammar refinement.
  3. Reported difficulties included fabricated citations and stylistic rigidity in AI output.
  4. Students worried that AI use could erode their independent critical thinking.
  5. They practiced selective verification and agreed that language-editing help is acceptable but wholesale text generation is not.

The gain

Ten Indonesian English Education students used AI tools for brainstorming, outlining, and grammatical refinement in their academic writing.

The problem

The same students ran into fabricated citations and stylistic rigidity from AI tools, and feared losing their independent critical thinking.

The rundown

The researchers used purposive recruitment and an asynchronous online open-ended questionnaire. Responses were analyzed with Braun and Clarke's six-phase thematic analysis framework.

On benefits, students described AI as a support for early-stage ideas, essay structure, and grammatical polish. Operational problems included citations that did not exist and writing that felt rigid or formulaic.

On academic integrity, participants described checking AI-supplied references themselves and set a shared ethical line. Linguistic scaffolding was endorsed, while copying generated text wholesale was treated as a violation.

What this doesn’t fix

The study is a qualitative case study of only ten purposively recruited students at one institution, so findings reflect self-reported perceptions and cannot be generalized.

Sources

  1. Peer-reviewedLANGUAGE : Jurnal Inovasi Pendidikan Bahasa dan Sastra2026-11-03

The debate