Academic Use of AI by College Students and Self-Regulated Learning: The Moderating Effect of Usage Motivation and the Construction/Substitution Pathways

Abstract

Generative AI permeates students’ educational writing and assignment conduct, but its scholarly effects emerge less from use quantity as from qualitatively different strategic purpose types: enhancing (scaffolding planning, monitoring, reflective amendment) versus replacing (subsuming central cognitive labor). This paper sketchs and empirically validate an integrative framework that associates two motivational dispositions (Enhancement Orientation vs. Replacing Orientation) and three AI use patterns (A, B, C) with effects on two outcomes: 1) satisfaction and 2) quality, thereby contrasting use frequency with strategic purpose. Key constructs include motivational orientations, self-regulated learning (SRL), self-efficacy, and the two AI use intentions. A multidisciplinary sample of 300 university students with recent experience using generative AI completed a questionnaire, which included readapted items measuring motivation, SRL, and self-efficacy, as well as novel items assessing supportive versus substitutional intentions. Confirmatory factor analyses (WLSMV) revealed high convergent and discriminant validity (standardized loadings 0.749–0.907; AVE 0.598–0.642) of four constructs, indicating unique explanatory value for each of these four variables. Composite reliabilities ranged from 0.748 to 0.911). Structural model fit was good (χ2(194)=112.232, p=1.000; CFI=1.000; TLI≈1.00; RMSEA=0.000; SRMR=0.034). Both Enhancement and Efficiency-Avoidance Orientations increased SRL (and self-efficacy) and, both directly and indirectly, supportive intentions, and decreased substitutional intentions, (to a greater extent) through SRL. Both orientations also directly increased substitutional intentions but did not meaningfully decrease SRL. Self-efficacy played a mostly protective role—it was a negative predictor of substitutional but not of supportive intention. These fi ndings establish the emtwo- way motivational system: a promotive enhancement pathway routed through SRL and a more direct Efficiency- Avoidance pathway that amplifies substitution dependence.