Artificial Intelligence as a Catalyst and Constraint for Critical Thinking Development: Examining Perceptions, Benefits, and Limitations among Social Work Students

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has revolutionized higher education by affecting student access to information, knowledge building, and learning activities. Although critical thinking was no longer a basic requirement in academic learning and professional practice, it was still a core component of social work education where ethical judgments, reflection and evidence-based decision making had been crucially important. While personalised learning, feedback and reflective practice had been possible with the use of AI tools like ChatGPT and Grammarly, questions about academic integrity, dependency, privacy, and independent thinking have persisted. The link between Artificial Intelligence and critical thinking had been examined from the social work higher education students' viewpoint. This specific qualitative case study design had been used in analyzing the experiences of first year Master of Social Work students at the Excelsia University College. Five students who had experience of using AI applications had been involved in semi-structured interviews and data had been analysed using thematic analysis in the way proposed by Braun and Clarke. The results had shown that both students and instructors have perceived AI as a helpful learning tool, which improved learning efficiency, academic writing, idea organisation and reflective thinking. But challenges around AI dependency, creativity, accuracy, bias, academic integrity had also been raised by participants. The study had highlighted the importance of responsible AI literacy frameworks to ensure ethical technology use and maintain the human element of reasoning and professional judgment.