ChatGPT, as one of the major generative AI tools, has not only changed the way we retrieve and process information but is also profoundly disrupting the way teaching and learning are conducted in higher education. Prior research has shed light on various aspects of ChatGPT use in academia; however, most of these studies have used descriptive analysis to summarize only the benefits and downsides of ChatGPT. There is a lack of theoretical underpinning and empirical attempts to study the impact of ChatGPT in higher education, especially regarding how its use might influence university students’ academic confidence. In this research, we posit that there is a positive relationship between ChatGPT use and academic confidence. From a social psychology perspective, particularly based on the expectancy theory of motivation, we further propose that university students’ academic confidence after using ChatGPT for coursework will be influenced by three moderating factors: the valence of academic outcomes, students’ desirability of control, and their protestant work ethics. Five hundred students from the school of business are invited to participate in the study. They are required to write an essay of 600-800 words on a specific topic covered in the subject, with the use of ChatGPT being mandatory for this task. After participants submit their essays, they will be asked to immediately report the level of ChatGPT use in completing the essay. When students receive their assignment grades at a later stage, they will be invited to complete an online survey measuring academic confidence, valence of academic outcomes, desirability of control, and protestant work ethic. We will then run regressions to test the predicted interactive effects between ChatGPT usage and outcome valence, desirability of control, and protestant work ethics on participants’ academic confidence. The findings of this research will contribute to the teaching and learning literature in several ways. First, it contributes to the growing body of literature on the use of generative AI in education by demonstrating the impact of using ChatGPT in coursework on university students’ academic confidence. Second, it adds to the literature on academic confidence by identifying its antecedents and moderators. Third, it also contributes to the literature in social psychology on the valence of academic outcomes, desire for control, and protestant work ethics by revealing their relationships with students’ usage of generative AI in learning. Last but not least, the current research will have strong implications for students and educators regarding the optimal method of ChatGPT use in teaching and learning.

Keywords: ChatGPT, Academic confidence, Valence, Desire of control, Protestant work ethics.