AI literacy over tool design: a mixed-methods study of scaffolded versus unrestricted generative AI in programming education

Abstract

Generative AI has become a routine resource in programming education, and most institutional responses to it are attempts at control, either by restricting access or by offering students a controlled version of the technology. This paper reports a seven-week mixed-methods pilot study in a master's-level data analytics course, in which 33 students were randomly assigned either to a scaffolded AI Study Coach embedded in the notebook-based laboratory sessions or to unrestricted use of AI tools of their own choosing. The Coach offered stepwise hints, did not generate code, limited the number of hints per session, and required a short reflection at the end of each session. The design assumed, in line with scaffolding theory and recent experimental evidence, that guided and limited support would build confidence and reduce over-reliance, and that the scaffolded group would learn more. Assignment performance did not differ between the conditions. Students in the Coach condition reported higher confidence but managed the hint budget poorly, while students in the unrestricted condition were satisfied with their tools and uneasy about how much they depended on them. In interviews, students in both conditions identified awareness of their own reliance on AI as the most valuable outcome of the course. Students who had formulated their own rules for when to use AI performed better in both conditions, and those with the best understanding of how the models work, in every case self-taught, used the tools most deliberately and achieved the highest scores. The design of the tool mattered less than the students'capacity to govern their own use of it, a capacity that is at present acquired by chance. The paper argues that the appropriate response is structural: assessment that grades the reasoning behind AI-assisted work, and AI literacy taught explicitly as a core skill.