Negotiating Generative AI-Assisted Academic Writing: Student Perspectives on Authorship, Responsibility and Learning

The increasing use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in university students’ academic writing is challenging established understandings of authorship, academic integrity, and learning. The study investigated how undergraduates negotiate authorship, responsibility and learning within these emerging writing practices. The study used a qualitatively driven mixed-methods design with undergraduate students enrolled in two sections of an academic writing course at an English-medium university in Cyprus. Data comprised 55 written reflections on students’ use of GenAI while completing a research paper and 27 responses to an anonymous post-course questionnaire. Reflections were analysed using thematic analysis, with questionnaire data providing additional descriptive and contextual evidence. Findings indicate that students positioned GenAI as legitimate support for brainstorming, organising ideas, language refinement and feedback while resisting its use as a substitute for intellectual engagement. Students constructed authorship through human judgement, locating ownership in verification, evaluation, decision-making, and accountability rather than sole textual production. Ethical GenAI use emerged as boundary work distinguishing assistance from substitution, while meaningful learning was associated with maintaining cognitive ownership of the thinking underpinning academic work. These findings suggest that GenAI can be integrated into academic writing while students continue to locate authorship, ethical responsibility, and meaningful learning in human judgement and intellectual engagement.