Human or <scp>GenAI</scp> Support? Conditions Impacting Students' Strategy Choices in an Essay Revision Task

ABSTRACT Background Students often struggle to effectively self‐regulate their learning strategies during writing tasks and typically require external support from teachers, peers or AI tools to overcome these challenges. While emerging research explores how generative AI can dialogically interact with students to support the writing process, little is known about how such AI support influences writing strategies during the essay‐revision task. Furthermore, there is limited understanding of how GenAI support compares to other external conditions (human feedback or no support) in shaping writing strategies and how it interacts with internal learning factors such as writing skills, metacognitive accuracy and learning motivation. Objectives Our study aims to investigate the relationship of self‐regulated learning (SRL) strategies that students adopt for an essay‐revision task with learning conditions (both internal and external) and learning performance. Methods Using a technology‐enhanced learning environment, we collected trace data from 87 participants during essay‐writing and revision tasks. We applied Mixture Markov Models (MMMs) to model the writing/revision processes, then used the resulting transition matrix within the Expectation–Maximization (EM) clustering algorithm to identify SRL strategies. A series of statistical tests were applied to examine the relationship of strategies that students adopt for a revision task with learning conditions (internal and external) and learning performance. Results and Conclusions We found moderate associations between writing strategies during the essay‐revision task and internal conditions (writing strategies adopted in the preceding essay‐writing task) and large associations with external conditions (external support). However, no association was found between writing strategies during the essay‐revision task and learning performance. These findings inform the development of educational interventions to improve students' writing strategies.