Generative AI in Vietnamese undergraduates: Cognitive offloading and AI dependency in critical thinking disposition
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools are now commonly used in undergraduate academic work, and a growing body of evidence associates their use with lower self-reported critical thinking. This study examines whether that association runs through one cognitive mechanism or two with different origins, modeling cognitive offloading and AI dependency as parallel mediators. Data were collected from a single cross-sectional survey of a convenience sample of 448 undergraduates at five institutions in the northern area of Ho Chi Minh City, conducted when none of the institutions had issued their own rules on generative AI use. Analyses used partial least squares structural equation modeling with 10,000 bootstrap samples, two one-sided equivalence tests, and a specification test against a linear benchmark. Critical thinking was measured as a self-reported disposition, not as ability on a performance test. Both mediators are on average associated with lower critical thinking disposition to a comparable degree (−0.277 and −0.240), but their origins differ. Use frequency transmits 95% of its indirect effect through offloading and shows no substantive direct association with dependency once the remaining antecedents are controlled, whereas trust in AI transmits only 7% through offloading (descriptive point-estimate shares without intervals). The second-order contrast between the two antecedents is −0.126 (95% confidence interval [−0.191, −0.070]), establishing a double dissociation. Because the two mechanisms are associated with the outcome to a comparable degree but have different origins, intervention implications cannot be read off effect magnitude: on this reading, interventions that act on the level of use would reach only one channel. The two no-association conclusions (trust to offloading, use frequency to dependency) rest on equivalence tests with power of 0.67 and 0.69 at n = 448 and need replication with n > 600.
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