Generative AI, Academic Integrity, and Student Learning Autonomy in Higher Education: A Cross-Cultural Study

Abstract

The rise of generative AI has dramatically altered the landscape of the higher education sector, impacting student information seeking, academic writing, problem-solving, and learning processes. But as it has been used more, there have been serious concerns about academic integrity, originality, overdependence and the development of independent learning. The research explores how generative AI affects academic integrity and students' autonomy in learning across cultures in higher education. It has revealed the difference in perception and application of AI tools for academic work among students from various cultural and educational backgrounds, regarding responsible use, ethical decision making, self-regulated learning and awareness of institutional policies. These findings show that generative AI is being adopted across a broad range of areas for generating ideas, summarization, language enhancement, and assistance with assignments, yet student conceptions of "ethical boundaries" vary widely. A vast majority of participants indicated that AI enhances their sense of confidence, productivity, and learning independence, while some revealed dependence and did not understand what is considered misconduct. The following were significantly different across cultures: policy awareness, teacher guidance, and attitudes toward AI-assisted writing. These results indicate that generative AI can be employed as a learning assistant to help students learn independently instead of a tool to replace their own work. If there aren't clearly established institutional policies for what constitutes original work, digital literacy training, and culturally appropriate academic integrity policies, though, then using AI can undermine originality and foster unethical academic practices. The study suggests that the focus needs to shift from a blanket ban to creating clear policies for the use of AI, revisiting how the capabilities of AI are assessed, and refining programs to train students about responsible, ethical, and independent learning in AI-enabled classrooms.