ACADEMIC PERMISSIBILITY IN LLM-ASSISTED EFL WRITING: HOW CONTEXTUAL JUSTIFICATIONS SHAPE STUDENTS' MORAL JUDGMENTS IN A WITHIN-SUBJECTS VIGNETTE SURVEY

Abstract

AbstractThis paper investigates EFL students’ perceptions of ethical acceptability judgments of using Large Language Models (LLMs) into academic writing. In contrast to the simplistic view of acceptable/unacceptable use of LLMs, the present study models how specific contextual justifications shape students’ moral evaluations of LLM-assisted writing. A cross-sectional within-subject design was used with 220 third-year EFL students at three public universities in Laghouat, Algeria, to rate the ethical acceptability of LLMs use to complete four writing assignments. Under a neutral baseline condition, participants assessed the use of LLM for completing the four assignments, as well as four single condition contexts (disclosure, accuracy verification, syllabus permission, and learning intent). Their ratings were analyzed using Δ-effect scores (conditional minus baseline) to quantify condition effects above baseline and to describe task-level differences in ethical acceptability. Contextual conditions increased ethical acceptability to different extents, with learning intent producing the largest positive shift (ΔM ≈ 1.6, d ≈ 0.7) and disclosure exerting only a small, non-robust effect (ΔM ≈ 0.2, d ≈ 0.1). The baseline ratings also followed a clear gradient, which saw AI-assisted proofreading as the most acceptable while paraphrasing was consistently least acceptable. Theoretically, the study adds value by supporting a conditional-ethics perspective because it demonstrates how students’ moral considerations of LLMs use are dependent on learning-oriented and epistemically responsible frameworks rather than procedural cues like disclosure or syllabus permissions with no behavioral consequences. Practically, the paper advices that AI policies and pedagogy should be designed to encourage learning intent and verification activities as opposed to disclosure as a standalone requirement.Keywords: Academic integrity; large language models (LLMs); EFL writing; conditional ethics