Critical literacy in artificial intelligence assisted writing instruction: A systematic review

This systematic review aims to examine the relationship between artificial intelligence (AI)- assisted writing instruction and critical literacy skills of K-12 students. As a result of searching Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), and EBSCO databases in accordance with the criteria determined, 15 studies were included in the analysis. As a result of the descriptive analysis, five main themes were identified: critical content production and evaluation, metacognitive skills and self-regulation, ethical thinking and evaluation, analytical thinking and problem solving, motivation and self-efficacy for the AI-assisted writing process and critical literacy skills. Our findings show that students use AI tools not as a simple copy-paste tool, but as a supportive element to develop their thinking. Students question AI outputs, synthesize them with their own ideas and manage their writing processes more consciously. The findings of our study reveal that AI-assisted writing experiences increase students' ethical awareness of originality, academic honesty and creativity, improve their systematic thinking skills in complex writing tasks, and increase their motivation to write. However, the lack of any study at preschool level, the limited number of studies at primary school level, and the scarcity of qualitative studies indicate that more research is needed in this field.