The Use of ChatGPT in Academic Writing: Perspectives from Undergraduate Students in Malaysian Public University

Academic writing necessitates the deployment of various metacognitive, effort regulation, cognitive, social, and affective strategies. Recently, the integration of artificial intelligence, specifically ChatGPT, has emerged as a digital scaffold designed to guide and assist writers through the composing process. This quantitative study aims to explore the utilization of ChatGPT as an academic scaffold and investigate its correlational relationship with the writing strategies employed by learners. Employing a quantitative survey design, data were collected utilizing a 43-item, 5-point Likert-scale instrument divided into two primary constructs: Writing Strategies and ChatGPT usage. A convenience sample of 95 undergraduate students from Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Perak Branch participated in the study. Correlation analyses indicated a significant positive association between ChatGPT usage and overall writing strategies. Specifically, a medium positive correlation was identified between ChatGPT usage and metacognitive (r = .358), effort regulation (r = .419), cognitive (r = .385), and affective (r = .491) writing strategies. Conversely, a weak positive correlation was observed concerning social writing strategies (r = .273). These findings carry pertinent pedagogical implications, suggesting that higher education practitioners should systematically integrate AI scaffolding into writing instruction to enhance self-regulated learning and writing behaviors.

Academic Writing; ChatGPT Integration; Digital Scaffolding

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