Investigating the Impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on Fourth Year EFL Students’ Research Writing Project

This study examines the impact of AI in writing research projects for the fourth-year EFL students at the English Department, Faculty of Education, University of Aden. The researcher used a pure qualitative method to collect data of this study. The data was collected by using two instruments that are the students’ corpora research projects and the focused group discussion. The corporation was used to provide an in-depth analysis of the ways the students used in writing their research. On the other hand, the focused group discussion concentrated on capturing the students’ opinions, experiences and perceptions about the use of AI in research writing. The researcher employed content-based analysis and comparative analysis to analyze and interpret the data. The findings from the instruments revealed that most of the students had strong positive impact from using AI programs in their research-writing projects such as improving their grammatical accuracy, writing style, and overall ability of writing; all which led to increase their writing performance. In contrary, some of them expressed that they had a negative impact on their research writing projects such as the reliance on AI programs hindered their ability to develop independent critical thinking and writing skills. The study recommended the following: students should not rely entirely on the use of AI programs when writing the research project, but they can use them to organize their ideas and determine their area of work. Moreover, there should an awareness of the negative impact of using AI programs completely; since AI, programs since may lead students to depend on themselves. Additionally, incorporating AI programs into education should consider the ethical aspects of writing. A protocol should be created with boundaries regarding the use of AI programs in academic work.