ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE LITERACY AND ITS ROLE IN DEVELOPING CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS AMONG 4TH SEMESTER STUDENTS OF UNIVERSITY OF GUJRAT

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a permanent part of academic and professional life and has brought along a whole new set of skills AI literacy that educators are just starting to seriously consider. This paper is a study of how AI literacy affects critical thinking skills among 4th semester students of University of Gujrat (UoG), Pakistan. With a mixed-methods sequential explanatory design to collect and analyse data first a quantitative phase was undertaken. Quantitative data were collected from 150 students using a validated AI Literacy Scale and a critical thinking instrument based on the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal and the California Critical Thinking Skills Test. Later, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 purposively selected participants. ... AI literacy and critical thinking scores Quite a bit and positively correlated, as the Pearson correlation test (r = 0.54, p<0.001). With regression analysis, it was established that AI literacy was a significant predictor of critical thinking and could explain 38% of the variance. The qualitative themes revealed the three ways of mechanisms: questioning AI outputs, recognizing AI limitations, and developing intellectual autonomy. According to the study, AI literacy is considered a large intellectual capability rather than merely a technical skill, and it also has a significant impact on the students' reasoning, evaluation, and engagement with knowledge. The paper calls for increased initiatives in curriculum revision, teacher training, and strengthening college policy.