Critical thinking improves with structured use of generative AI tools
When Does GenAI Use Support Critical Thinking? A Cross-Cultural Structural Account of Transactive Memory with GenAI
Human-Computer Interaction
Summary
People wonder if using generative AI helps them think better or not. This study looked at college students in the US and Türkiye and found that just using AI isn't enough to improve critical thinking. Instead, how people work together with the AI — by sharing tasks and carefully rechecking its answers — is what matters. This pattern was mostly the same across the two cultures studied.
What this means in practice
- •For educational technology developers: Design AI tools that encourage users to actively rework and coordinate tasks with AI outputs to foster critical thinking.$Commercial implications: Enables educational software companies to build smarter tutoring systems that promote deeper engagement with AI-generated content.
- •For corporate training teams: Create training programs that teach employees how to divide cognitive tasks effectively with AI assistance to enhance decision-making.
Authors
Mahir Akgun, Sacip Toker
Abstract
Whether generative AI (GenAI) use helps or hinders critical thinking remains contested, and existing accounts emphasize exposure to the tool rather than how a person structures their engagement with it. Extending Transactive Memory Systems (TMS) theory to human-AI partnerships, we test a structural account of critical thinking in GenAI-assisted academic work among 891 college students in the United States and Türkiye. Self-appraised thinking ability and confidence in the partnership shaped how much practical experience a person built up with GenAI, but neither predicted critical thinking directly. That experience mattered only through two downstream behaviors, dividing and coordinating cognitive labor with the tool, and actively reworking its output rather than accepting it as given. A multigroup comparison found this structure largely invariant, with two theoretically interpretable exceptions. This study offers a structural, TMS-based account of critical thinking in GenAI-assisted work.