Who Is Doing the Thinking? AI as a Dynamic Cognitive Partner: A Learner-Informed Framework

Abstract

Artificial intelligence is increasingly embedded in education, yet there remains a need to explain how students conceptualize AI's role in their thinking and learning. This study proposes a framework positioning AI as a dynamic cognitive partner whose function shifts across learning situations. Using qualitative analysis of written responses from 133 secondary students in Hong Kong following completion of an AI literacy course, we identified nine interrelated dimensions through which learners described AI as partnering with their cognition: conceptual scaffolding for difficult ideas; feedback and error detection; idea stimulation; cognitive organization; adaptive tutoring support; metacognitive monitoring support; task and cognitive load regulation; learning continuity beyond classroom boundaries; and explanation reframing through representational flexibility during moments of being stuck or overwhelmed. Across these dimensions, students distinguished between productive support that extends understanding and unproductive reliance that replaces cognitive effort, indicating situational awareness of when AI should and should not be used. Grounded in sociocultural theory, distributed cognition, self-regulated learning, and cognitive load perspectives, the framework clarifies how AI becomes integrated into learners' cognitive activity while illuminating the boundary between cognitive extension and substitution.