The Impact of English Students’ Increased Reliance on AI Technology in Literary Analysis

The introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) technology has had a significant impact on the landscape of English literary studies. Although AI technology can be a valuable tool in enhancing the efficiency and quality of critical analysis, students increasingly rely on AI tools for literary analysis and comprehension, often at the expense of engaging with the texts themselves. This paper seeks to explore the implications of this excessive dependence, examining the reasons behind students' aversion to reading and the consequences of substituting AI for traditional literary engagement. Entrenched in both Piaget’s Constructivist Theory and Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory, which emphasise that literary analysis is both an individual cognitive activity and a social and cultural process, this paper utilised the interpretive paradigm to explore the subjective experiences, meanings, and the nuanced influence of AI on human interpretation and learning processes. The Qualitative Approach and Case Study Design were employed to gain deep insight into this phenomenon. Semi-structured interviews were administered to six purposively selected English lecturers from three higher educational institutions in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Thematic analysis of data revealed that the development of critical thinking and subjective interpretation of texts were crippled by over-dependence on AI. Furthermore, the study highlighted that flipped classrooms and modelling were powerful teaching strategies that could be used to combat the widespread use of AI. The authors recommend that higher education institutions should encourage the utilisation of AI tools as complementary resources, rather than replacements for human intuition.