Poster Presentation Limits and Challenges of AI-Assisted Academic Writing Revision Among Medical Students more

AI tools have been promoted as effective supports for second language academic writing, yet classroom-based evidence suggests that their educational impact depends on instructional design. This study reports preliminary findings on how first-year students at a private medical school in Japan used ChatGPT while revising a scientific research paper in an English academic writing course. Students revised the Introduction of an Introduction-Methods-Results-Discussion-formatted paper using ChatGPT and submitted their conversation histories. Example prompts, written in English, were provided to encourage structured analysis and editing rather than direct rewriting. Ninety conversation histories were analyzed to identify patterns of prompt use, and informal interviews supplemented interpretation. Although most students revised their writing, nearly two-thirds struggled to use the example prompts as intended. Common issues included partial prompt use, combining multiple writing tasks in a single prompt, or abandoning the provided prompts in favor of short, general instructions. Interviews suggested that English-language prompts, perceived prompt length, and limited understanding of how prompts function contributed to these outcomes. Overall, the findings suggest that weakly guided AI integration may reinforce surface-level revision behaviors and prompt design must account for learner proficiency, language preference, and AI literacy if AI tools are to support academic writing development.