Abstract

This study investigated psychological barriers to English paragraph writing and perceptions of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) among 86 non-English-major university students. The findings showed that 98.8% of the students had used GenAI, with 94.2% using it at least occasionally. Fear of grammatical and vocabulary errors (M = 3.78) and a lack of confidence in paragraph organization (M = 3.65) emerged as notable difficulties. Students valued GenAI’s ability to suggest vocabulary and sentence structures (M = 3.94) and explain writing errors (M = 3.93). Spearman correlation analysis revealed positive and statistically significant associations among the three constructs (ρ = 0.469–0.517; p < 0.001). Responses to the open-ended questions indicated that students appreciated the support provided by GenAI while expressing concerns about dependence, loss of personal voice, and academic integrity. Based on these findings, the study offers pedagogical implications for the responsible use of GenAI in English language teaching.

Keywords: English paragraph writing, generative AI, non-English-major students, psychological barriers, writing anxiety.