Enacting AI Literacy in Historical Inquiry Among Chinese Junior Secondary Students

This qualitative case study investigated how 12 Chinese Grade 7 students engaged with generative artificial intelligence (AI) over a six-week project on the collapse of the Qin Dynasty. Drawing on an established AI literacy framework, the study adapted its dimensions to develop a framework tailored to historical inquiry, comprising four dimensions: AI Prompting Competence, AI Information Credibility, AI Bias Verification, and AI Ethics and Safety. Classroom observations and post-project interviews were analysed using inductive thematic analysis, while AI interaction logs were examined separately through sequence-based analysis to complement the thematic findings, with the results across all three data sources subsequently interpreted through the adapted AI literacy framework. Three themes emerged: developing historical questions and extending inquiry through AI interaction, critically evaluating AI outputs, and strategic engagement with AI in historical inquiry. The findings illustrate how AI literacy was enacted through students’ disciplinary engagement with AI-generated historical knowledge, highlighting the interplay between AI-related competencies and the evidential and interpretive demands of historical inquiry. This study advances a disciplinary perspective on AI literacy by demonstrating how its enactment can be understood in relation to the knowledge practices and learning demands of specific subject areas.