Student perspective on AI practices in english writing at private universities of Bangladesh: a phenomenological study

Abstract

This study explores the student perspective on AI practices in English writing at private universities of Bangladesh. The advent of AI influenced English writing practices world wide. AI technologies are rapidly becoming more and more sophisticated and now are able to contribute in English writing like never before. The use of AI has not been integrated in policies for academic practices in Bangladesh yet. This study aims to know about student’s usage of AI tools, the benefits and challenges they are facing and there expectation from the policy makers about AI integration in English writing. This investigation follows a phenomenological qualitative method and it consults interview with five university students from a reputed private university of Bangladesh. This study finds that the students of the private universities of Bangladesh are familiar AI tools and they use those in their writing for prewriting and refining the writing. It also finds that the use of AI tools contributed to better writing and academic performance. On the contrary, it affected their writing motivation and critical thinking, and the students also suffered similarity checks. The study also finds that the students want policies about ethical practice of AI. These findings will help the policy makers and ELT educators to plan for their policies and classroom spaces to facilitate ethical use of AI in English writing.