A study introduces "Epistemic AI Literacy" (EAIL) to understand how students think and learn while co-programming with generative AI, revealing a general lack of effective epistemic strategies.

In plain terms

When students use Generative AI (GenAI) for tasks like programming, how do they effectively think and learn? This paper addresses this by introducing a new concept called "Epistemic AI Literacy" (EAIL). EAIL reframes AI literacy as a process of how students acquire, evaluate, and justify knowledge while interacting with AI, rather than just knowing about AI. The researchers examined how students set learning goals (epistemic aims) and the strategies they use (epistemic processes) during human-AI co-programming. They analyzed a large dataset of student-AI dialogues, identifying processes like outsourcing, explanation seeking, and verification. The study found that most students (78.8%) exhibited low EAIL, relying on less effective strategies like simply letting the AI do the work or just checking its output. Only a small percentage (11.1%) demonstrated high EAIL, combining mastery-oriented goals with deeper engagement like seeking justifications.