Digital personas of AI use in nursing education: a latent class analysis of learning behaviors and academic engagement.

Background: Artificial intelligence (AI) is quickly revolutionizing higher education; however, there is high heterogeneity regarding the adoption of AI amongst the students. In the context of nursing education, where successful learning, critical thinking skills, and professional accountability are crucial, it becomes essential to understand how the students interact with the AI applications. The current study was conducted to determine the AI-use profiles among nursing students and how they relate to academic outcomes and demographics. Methods: We used a cross-sectional survey among nursing students. AI use for learning purposes was assessed using four binary indicators capturing use for understanding concepts, summarizing content, drafting assignments, and language support. Study engagement was measured using selected items from the Online Student Engagement framework and collapsed into three ordinal categories. We assessed academic performance using three self-reported items. We performed a latent class analysis to identify distinct student profiles based on AI use and engagement indicators. Multinomial logistic regression examined associations between demographic factors and class membership. Multiple linear regression assessed differences in academic performance across classes. Results: The best model was a three-profile solution with a good classification accuracy. The profiles included strategic engagers, moderate users, and passive or low engagers. As expected, strategic engagers were characterized by high levels of engagement with all kinds of behaviors studied, whereas Passive used consistently reported low levels of engagement. Usage indicators of AI revealed little variation among classes. The performance scores of strategic engagers were significantly better compared with those of passive users (β = 2.39, 95% CI = 2.08-2.69). No significant association was found for demographic characteristics. Conclusions: Nursing students can be categorized into distinct profiles based on their patterns of AI use and study engagement. Our findings showed that study engagement, but not AI use alone, was the key factor associated with academic performance. These findings highlight the importance of promoting effective learning strategies alongside AI integration. Educational interventions should focus on guiding students toward strategic and responsible use of AI to enhance learning outcomes.