Artificial Intelligence-Assisted Learning and Epistemic Agency: A Critical Scoping Review and Conceptual Synthesis of Psychological Responses and Epistemic Dependence

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Islamic Education Guidance and Counseling Study Program, Universitas Islam Negeri Salatiga, Salatiga, Indonesia

2 Department of Guidance and Counseling, Universitas Negeri Malang, Malang, Indonesia

3 Guidance and Counseling Study Program, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Sekaran Campus, Gunungpati, Semarang, Indonesia

Abstract

Artificial intelligence-assisted learning can improve academic performance while simultaneously weakening the learner’s role in understanding, evaluation, and judgment. This study presents a critical scoping review and conceptual synthesis of psychological responses to artificial intelligence-assisted learning and their implications for human epistemic agency. Structured searches of Scopus and the Education Resources Information Center identified 32 empirical studies published between 2022 and 2026. Because 38 of 106 reports sought for retrieval were inaccessible, the corpus is treated as a bounded empirical baseline rather than an exhaustive census of the literature. Two broad trajectories emerged. Active and regulated use was associated with higher self-efficacy, confidence, perceived competence, feedback engagement, and metacognitive monitoring. In contrast, unregulated automation was associated with dependency, overreliance, anxiety, self-doubt, and uncertainty about competence. Philosophically, these patterns support a distinction between epistemic scaffolding and epistemic substitution. Drawing on Sosa’s virtue epistemology, scaffolding occurs when artificial intelligence contributes to task accuracy while the learner’s adroitness remains causally relevant to success, preserving apt performance. Substitution occurs when an output is accurate but its success is no longer attributable to the learner’s competence, rendering the performance epistemically inapt. Cognitive offloading helps explain the transition between these modes. No included study directly measured the impostor phenomenon using a validated impostor instrument; it is therefore reframed as a Competence Attribution Ambiguity Hypothesis rather than an established empirical effect. Responsible artificial intelligence use in education requires calibrated dependence, active metacognitive control, and preservation of human epistemic agency.

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Artificial Intelligence-Assisted Learning and Epistemic Agency: A Critical Scoping Review and Conceptual Synthesis of Psychological Responses and Epistemic Dependence

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References

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Journal of Philosophical Investigations
Volume 20, Issue 56 - Serial Number 56
Articles
Issue 56, Autumn 2026
October 2026
Pages 175-194

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