Selective adoption of AI in entrepreneurship education: a micro-narrative analysis of student rejection and ambivalence
Tugce Nuray Saka, Yelena Smirnova, Esther HormigaPurpose
This study aims to examine how university entrepreneurship students make sense of artificial intelligence (AI) in their courses, focusing on narratives of rejection and ambivalence rather than simple adoption, aiming to inform pedagogical approaches that are both effective and ethically grounded.
Design/methodology/approach
We analysed 606 anonymous micro-narratives from entrepreneurship students at two Catalan universities. Using an interpretative narrative approach, we selected a subsample of 117 responses that explicitly expressed rejection or ambivalence and coded them against established frameworks of functional–cognitive rejection, affective-emotional resistance and ambivalence.
Findings
Students position AI along a spectrum from outright rejection to ambivalence. Cognitive rejection stems from seeing AI as ineffective, non-essential, or unreliable. Emotional rejection reflects threats to creativity/identity, fear/anxiety, and moral concerns. Ambivalence implies that students adopt AI conditionally, with verification, treat it as useful but not critical, and limit its role to preserve human judgement. This underscores students' agency and a view of AI as a tool to be managed.
Research limitations/implications
Findings are context-specific and cross-sectional. Future research should examine how students' stances evolve over time and across disciplines and test the influence of prior tech experience and institutional discourses.
Practical implications
Educators should legitimise doubt and ambivalence as valuable learning resources, using human-centred pedagogies that foster ethical awareness and critical judgment to prepare future entrepreneurs to use AI reflectively and responsibly.
Originality/value
This study foregrounds hesitant and critical student voices, reframing AI use from a simple adoption-resistance binary to a continuum of critical engagement. It also operationalises ambivalence as primarily three cognitive dimensions: bounded integration, conditional reliability and limited instrumentality.