The Impact of ChatGPT Use on the Motivation and Basic Psychological Needs of Saudi EFL Students

The advent of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) represents a significant technological breakthrough, enabling models like ChatGPT to facilitate human-like interactions, personalized learning, constructive feedback, and so on. The sophistication of generative AI has attracted considerable attention from researchers who explore its potential benefits for language learners. However, since it was released a few years ago, research on ChatGPT’s effectiveness in enhancing language learning motivation for English as a foreign language (EFL) learners remains limited. To this end, this research utilized the self-determination theory (SDT) to investigate the extent to which engaging in informal interactions with ChatGPT in extramural contexts influences motivation and the basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. To achieve this, a quasi-experimental design was employed with fifty EFL Saudi undergraduate students majoring in English, divided equally into an experimental and a control group. The experimental group participated in nine sessions over three weeks, engaging in informal self-directed interactions with ChatGPT on common everyday topics, while the control group responded to the same topics in writing without using AI, following the same number of sessions. The post-test results analyzed using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) indicated a substantial increase in autonomous motivation and a decrease in controlled motivation in the experimental group after the treatment. Moreover, the results revealed a significant increase in autonomy exclusively in the experimental group. However, no statistically significant difference was observed in competence and relatedness after the intervention. Informed by these findings, a number of implications and pedagogical recommendations for language instructors, policymakers, and other stakeholders were proposed.