Artificial Intelligence Literacy among Psychology Undergraduate Students

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly embedded in higher education, reshaping how students learn, evaluate information, and prepare for professional practice. Despite this rapid integration, AI literacy remains uneven across disciplines, particularly in non-technical fields such as psychology. This quantitative action research study examined the baseline level of AI literacy among Psychology undergraduate students at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) and evaluated the effectiveness of a structured, short-term instructional intervention designed to enhance cognitive and ethical dimensions of AI literacy. Using a pre-test–post-test design, 35 Psychology undergraduates completed the AI Literacy Questionnaire before and after a one-day intervention comprising two instructional sessions. Descriptive and inferential analyses revealed statistically significant improvements in both cognitive and ethical AI literacy following the intervention, with large effect sizes. These findings demonstrate that targeted, discipline-relevant AI literacy instruction can substantially strengthen psychology students’ conceptual understanding of AI and ethical awareness. The study contributes to the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) by providing empirical evidence to support the systematic integration of AI literacy into psychology and social science curricula.