Exploring Curiosity in the Use of Artificial Intelligence Tools to Develop Perceived Digital Skills Among Female Undergraduate Students at a Saudi University

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools are widely accessible in higher education, yet the psychological drivers that prompt students to engage with them proactively remain under-explored. This study examines how curiosity shapes students’ engagement with AI tools and what digital skills they report developing through it. A qualitative descriptive study within an interpretivist paradigm drew on 25 semi-structured interviews, two focus group discussions and one classroom observation session with 25 female undergraduate students across seven programmes at King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia, during the second semester of 2026. Participants used ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and OpenArt. Arabic transcripts were analysed in MAXQDA using codebook thematic analysis. Five themes are reported. Participants described curiosity as having cognitive, exploratory and creative dimensions, shaped by two contextual drivers, perceived usefulness and peer influence, and as moving them from passive use toward active exploration. They reported a range of competencies, from operating AI tools to independently adopting unfamiliar ones, and described these as arising through a cycle of exploration, confidence and perceived competence. Curiosity was an important but conditional starting point, enabled by institutional support, bounded by technological anxiety and ethical awareness, and shaped by perceived disciplinary relevance.