Beneficial or harmful? The relationship between artificial intelligence usage and innovation behavior

The widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing education, prompting a thorough investigation into its impact on students’ innovation behavior. Basing our research on cognitive evaluation theory, we conducted a two-wave survey with 557 students to explore the predictive link between use of AI in learning and innovation, incorporating digital efficacy as a mediator and AI literacy as a moderator. The results demonstrated a significant positive association between AI usage and innovation behavior, which was mediated by digital efficacy. However, although AI literacy strengthened the link between AI usage and digital efficacy for students with high (vs. low) literacy levels, it did not significantly alter the indirect pathway to innovation behavior. These findings extend the applicability of cognitive evaluation theory within the educational domain and provide empirical insights into the complex relationship between AI adoption and student innovation.