Exploring the Use of Generative AI on Students’ Academic Writing: An Exploratory Study

Recently, the application of generative AI (GenAI) in academic writing has been on the rise. However, existing research has yet to adequately explore the categories of questions asked by English as a foreign language (EFL) learners when using GenAI, as well as their adoption of GenAI-generated responses. This study designed a writing task with 8 participants (n=8) to investigate students' questioning behaviors, their adoption of GenAI's responses, and their perceptions of its usefulness and ease of use. An inductive approach was employed to identify five distinct categories of questions: understanding, knowledge, content, language, and train. The findings revealed that students were more likely to seek assistance from GenAI in the understanding category during academic writing. Moreover, no significant relationship was observed between the question categories and students' utilization or modification of GenAI responses. Overall, students found GenAI to be both useful and easy to use for academic writing, although lack of flexibility were noted. Based on these findings, the study aims to offer practical recommendations for enhancing the use of GenAI on students' academic writing.