The Relationship Between AI Dependency and Academic Self-Efficacy Among Indian College Students

The present study examines the relationship between AI dependency and academic self-efficacy among Indian college students. Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools have become increasingly embedded in the academic lives of college students across India, reshaping how they learn and complete assignments. This research aimed to understand how AI usage patterns affect students’ confidence in academic tasks. Using a correlational design, data were collected from a sample of university students through two instruments: an adaptation of the Internet Addiction Scale (IAS) to measure AI dependency and the College Academic Self-Efficacy Scale (CASES) to measure academic self-efficacy among students. Statistical analysis revealed a significant moderate level of AI dependency and higher levels of self-efficacy, the relationship was not very strong but statistically significant. These findings reveal that the reliance on AI is negatively and significantly related to academic self-efficacy among Indian college students. This indicates that students who rely heavily on AI tend to have low confidence in their ability to perform academic tasks independently. These results suggest that excessive reliance on AI may undermine the development of cognitive and academic skills among Indian college students. Limitations may include gender gap, sampling bias and self-report bias. The study may limit compatibility with parametric studies. Future research should explore this relationship using longitudinal and experimental study methods, incorporating gender and socio-economic status as moderating variables.