Digital Heutagogy in Developing Malay Language Academic Writing Skills among Postgraduate Students: A Conceptual Model

The advancement of digital technologies, most recently generative artificial intelligence, has reshaped how postgraduate students acquire, negotiate, and produce academic knowledge. Yet the development of academic writing skills in the Malay language (Bahasa Melayu) at the postgraduate level remains largely anchored in instructor-directed pedagogical practices that are poorly aligned with the maturity, autonomy, and professional realities of adult learners. This conceptual paper proposes a model of digital heutagogy for developing Malay language academic writing capability among postgraduate students in higher education institutions. Drawing on heutagogy (self-determined learning) as the primary lens, and integrating self-determination theory, self-regulated learning, sociocultural theory, and the cognitive process theory of writing, the paper synthesises literature on the pedagogy–andragogy–heutagogy (PAH) continuum, digital heutagogic design, and technology-mediated writing development. The proposed Digital Heutagogy for Malay Academic Writing (DH-MAW) model comprises five interrelated components: (1) learner agency as an antecedent condition; (2) a digital learning ecosystem as an enabling environment; (3) a six-element digital heutagogic process of exploring, creating, collaborating, connecting, sharing, and reflecting organised around learner-defined writing contracts; (4) graduated scaffolding and feedback, including artificial intelligence-mediated formative feedback; and (5) capability outcomes achieved through double-loop learning. Nine theoretical propositions are advanced, each specifying whether the relationship concerned is direct, mediating, or moderating, and each stated in a form that permits estimation and refutation. The paper further establishes why an adaptation of an English-language academic writing framework would be inadequate, by setting out the diglossic register system of Bahasa Melayu, its centrally gazetted terminology regime, its affix-driven nominalisation of scholarly register, and the absence of the corpus and genre infrastructure that English for academic purposes takes for granted. A dedicated implementation section addresses the conditions under which the model could operate in Malaysian higher education institutions: institutional and assessment-policy barriers, the structure and fair assessment of learner-defined writing contracts within existing thesis regulations, supervisor development needs, an explicit ethical protocol governing generative AI use in Malay academic writing, an institutional readiness audit with a three-semester phased rollout, a minimum-viable configuration for institutions with constrained infrastructure or students with uneven digital literacy, adaptations for learners of differing Malay proficiency, and a companion implementation checklist for practitioners. The model contributes to the underexplored intersection of heutagogy, national language education, and educational technology, and offers actionable guidance for curriculum designers, supervisors, graduate schools, and policymakers committed to strengthening scholarly writing in the Malay language.

heutagogy; self-determined learning; academic writing; Malay language; postgraduate education; educational technology; generative artificial intelligence

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