TITLE:
Learning to Question Artificial Intelligence: Epistemic Agency, Emotions, and Uncertainty in Higher Education
AUTHORS:
Abílio Lourenço, Maria Olímpia Paiva, Sabina Valente
KEYWORDS:
Generative Artificial Intelligence, Epistemic Agency, Epistemic Emotions, Tolerance of Uncertainty, Self-Regulated Learning, Higher Education, Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy
JOURNAL NAME:
Creative Education,
Vol.17 No.11,
November
3,
2026
ABSTRACT: Integrating generative artificial intelligence into higher education is transforming how students seek information, formulate ideas, and produce academic knowledge. Although these technologies can support personalised learning, feedback, and content understanding, their seemingly authoritative responses may encourage uncritical acceptance, cognitive delegation, and reduced metacognitive engagement. This critical, interpretive narrative review analyses the relationship between epistemic agency, epistemic emotions, tolerance of uncertainty, and students’ interaction with generative artificial intelligence. Drawing on contributions from Educational Psychology, epistemic cognition, self-regulated learning, and research on artificial intelligence in education, it is argued that meaningful use of these tools depends on students’ ability to formulate questions, evaluate information, tolerate ambiguity, regulate emotional responses, and justify academic decisions. The article discusses the roles of curiosity, surprise, confusion, doubt, frustration, and anxiety, highlighting that these emotions may promote inquiry or favour premature acceptance, depending on how they are interpreted and regulated. The article also addresses the risks of cognitive delegation and metacognitive passivity, proposing pedagogical strategies centred on verification, source comparison, reflection, and justification of decisions supported by artificial intelligence. It concludes that higher education should teach students not only to use artificial intelligence, but also to question, evaluate, and integrate it responsibly.