AI-mediated sensemaking in higher education students’ learning processes: Tensions, sensemaking practices, and AI-assigned purposes

Despite a proliferation of research on generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and its applications in higher education (HE), our understanding of the transformative processes where students create productive and ethically grounded uses of GenAI and how AI mediates students' sensemaking is still limited. Based on an empirical investigation of bachelor's degree students from educational sciences (N = 22) carrying out an inquiry-based course assignment, we analysed students' reflective essays to explore how GenAI mediated their sensemaking throughout the academic writing process. We selected an abductive analysis as the main approach to examine the AI-mediated construction of new understanding. Cross-tabulation analysis complemented qualitative analysis, addressing differences in AI-mediated sensemaking processes based on students' age. Our findings capture a multidimensional constellation of AI-mediated sensemaking processes. We found three central dynamics that guided students' sensemaking process: assessing and adapting the textual characteristics of AI-mediated writing, adjusting and improving interactions with GenAI, and contextualising AI-mediated academic writing experiences around everyday study practices. The tensions and ambiguities highlighted the ethical aspects of adopting AI-mediated academic writing practices, although students did not overcome all of these tensions during their sensemaking processes. Our study contributes theoretically by developing the notion of an AI-mediated sensemaking approach, therefore adding to existing understanding about the dialogical trajectories of AI-mediated writing processes through which students create new meanings and understandings of GenAI use as a learning resource. Further, we discuss the collective aspects of AI-mediated sensemaking.