“Can (A)I do this task?”: The role of AI as a socializer of students' self-beliefs of their abilities

Students' beliefs about their own academic abilities – their answers to the question “Can I do this task?” - are crucial to their success. Learning within AI-supported environments, alongside AI agents, influences students' beliefs about their abilities. Studies show enhancing and diminishing influences that remain unexplained by motivation theory, limiting theories' explanatory effect in AI-supported learning environments, and leaving educational technology research without a solid theoretical foundation. The following article specifies the situated expectancy-value theory (SEVT) for students' self-belief formation in the context of an AI-driven society. The expanded theory conceptualizes AI as becoming an artificial socializer, capturing the role of AI as an instrumental tool and social agents making up students' individual environments. Bridging AI and motivational research provides a framework for systematically investigating students' self-beliefs in AI-supported contexts and how educational technology can support positive self-beliefs, considering students' contexts and individual differences.