Yinping Ma,Yun Ma,Yaqi Duan

This study systematically examines the double-edged sword effect of generative artificial intelligence on university students' higher-order thinking from an interdisciplinary perspective spanning educational technology and cognitive psychology. The educational technology lens focuses on design principles for technology integration and learning environment construction, while the psychological perspective analyses the underlying cognitive mechanisms and metacognitive processes. Findings indicate that GenAI may undermine the ‘productive struggle’ essential for critical and innovative thinking (Risko & Gilbert, 2016) by inducing ‘cognitive offloading’ and ‘metacognitive neglect’. Concurrently, its algorithmic homogeneity risks triggering ‘dialectical thinking atrophy’ (Burke & Lueck, 2023). Building upon distributed cognition theory (Hutchins, 1995) and self-regulated learning models (Zimmerman, 2002), this paper constructs a ‘human-machine collaborative thinking’ educational framework. It proposes strategies such as ‘metacognitive scaffolding,’ ‘critical embedding,’ and ‘cognitive resistance training’ to transform GenAI from a ‘substitute for thinking’ into a ‘whetstone for thinking,’ providing theoretical and practical pathways for cultivating higher-order thinking in the intelligent era (Järvelä et al., 2020; Lin et al., 2025).

GenAI; Educational technology; Cognitive psychology; Higher-order thinking; Human-machine collaboration

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