Designing and validating an AI-supported tool for enhancing critical inquiry in EFL education

As Generative AI (GenAI) technologies advance rapidly, educational settings face an urgent need for targeted interventions to cultivate learners’ critical, higher-order inquiry skills, so they can effectively navigate, assess, and apply AI-generated content. The urgency of this imperative is magnified for EFL learners in test-driven educational contexts that foster passive learning behaviors, discourage questioning, and inhibit critical thinking. To address these issues, we developed an AI-powered tool designed to evaluate questions based on Bloom’s Taxonomy, a six-level framework of cognitive processes, ranging from basic recall questions (Level 1) to advanced questions that trigger creative and evaluative thinking (Level 5). In study 1, the reliability of the tool was confirmed through multiple inter-rater tests with strong agreement. In study 2, we implemented an intervention program that integrated Bloom’s Taxonomy, targeted readings, group discussions, and sharing to enhance inquiry skills among EFL undergraduate students. Four statistical analyses in SPSS 29.0—including ICC for inter-rater reliability, Pearson correlation, and regression—were conducted to validate the AI-powered inquiry evaluation tool. Across 174 questions, students’ average inquiry level improved from 3.3 to 4.1 (on a five-level scale), showing a significant 0.8-level increase and meaningful enhancement in question quality. The study provides solid evidence of the reliability and validity of the AI-powered inquiry evaluation tool as an objective, real-time method that enhances the efficiency, consistency, and scalability of assessments, offering valuable guidance for EFL practitioners, curriculum designers, researchers, educators, and institutions in integrating evidence-based, inquiry-driven tools into EFL programs.