Higher Education and the Age of AI Linguistic Affordances of Students using ChatGPT in Pakistan

Artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT have paved the way in Pakistan's higher education. This shift highlights the need to understand the use of language by students, particularly with the assistance of AI (Jamil, 2021; Tayan, et al., 2024). Although affordance theory explains human–tech...

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Main Author: Anwar, Tahira
Other Authors: Humanistis-yhteiskuntatieteellinen tiedekunta, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Kieli- ja viestintätieteiden laitos, Department of Language and Communication Studies, Jyväskylän yliopisto, University of Jyväskylä
Format: Master's thesis
Language:eng
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access: https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/103683
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author Anwar, Tahira
author2 Humanistis-yhteiskuntatieteellinen tiedekunta Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Kieli- ja viestintätieteiden laitos Department of Language and Communication Studies Jyväskylän yliopisto University of Jyväskylä
author_facet Anwar, Tahira Humanistis-yhteiskuntatieteellinen tiedekunta Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Kieli- ja viestintätieteiden laitos Department of Language and Communication Studies Jyväskylän yliopisto University of Jyväskylä Anwar, Tahira Humanistis-yhteiskuntatieteellinen tiedekunta Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Kieli- ja viestintätieteiden laitos Department of Language and Communication Studies Jyväskylän yliopisto University of Jyväskylä
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description Artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT have paved the way in Pakistan's higher education. This shift highlights the need to understand the use of language by students, particularly with the assistance of AI (Jamil, 2021; Tayan, et al., 2024). Although affordance theory explains human–technology interaction well (Gibson, 1979; Norman, 1988; Gaver, 1991), there are limited studies testing how someone’s disciplinary background affects the linguistic aspects of interaction outside the Western context. This study attempts to fill the gap by addressing: (1) What key linguistic affordances do students of social, and engineering sciences demonstrate during their interactions with ChatGPT in educational settings? And (2) how are these affordances similar and different among students of social sciences and engineering sciences? The study employed a mixed-methods content analysis (Krippendorff, 2018; Saldaña, 2021), 620 original student-given prompts to ChatGPT (n=100 per discipline). A five-category coding scheme, grounded by affordance theory, along with research on chatbots (Kakhki et al., 2024; Jeon, 2024), was used. Results reveal that students from both disciplines primarily use question-based and command-based prompts, while giving tasks mainly related to brainstorming, writing assistance, explanation, and prompts were typically moderate in difficulty, often containing hedging, technical jargon and several steps of scaffolding (Zhong et al., 2023). Social sciences students preferred reflective and open-ended prompts, whereas those in engineering sciences wanted topical questions where the evidence was clear. These findings show that prompt formulation is a linguistic way to demonstrate perceived AI affordance and is mainly influenced by discipline norms. Higher education institutes should enhance AI literacy by designing programs that equip students to use AI tools productively. Moreover, policy reforms are needed to integrate AI in the education system constructively, rather than seeing it as a threat to academic integrity.
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spellingShingle Anwar, Tahira Higher Education and the Age of AI : Linguistic Affordances of Students using ChatGPT in Pakistan ChatGPT Linguistic Affordances AI Viestintä Communication opiskelijat tekoäly
title Higher Education and the Age of AI : Linguistic Affordances of Students using ChatGPT in Pakistan
title_full Higher Education and the Age of AI : Linguistic Affordances of Students using ChatGPT in Pakistan
title_fullStr Higher Education and the Age of AI : Linguistic Affordances of Students using ChatGPT in Pakistan Higher Education and the Age of AI : Linguistic Affordances of Students using ChatGPT in Pakistan
title_full_unstemmed Higher Education and the Age of AI : Linguistic Affordances of Students using ChatGPT in Pakistan Higher Education and the Age of AI : Linguistic Affordances of Students using ChatGPT in Pakistan
title_short Higher Education and the Age of AI
title_sort higher education and the age of ai linguistic affordances of students using chatgpt in pakistan
title_sub Linguistic Affordances of Students using ChatGPT in Pakistan
title_txtP Higher Education and the Age of AI : Linguistic Affordances of Students using ChatGPT in Pakistan
topic ChatGPT Linguistic Affordances AI Viestintä Communication opiskelijat tekoäly
topic_facet AI ChatGPT Communication Linguistic Affordances Viestintä opiskelijat tekoäly
url https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/103683 http://www.urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:jyu-202506185480
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