Student Creativity in the Age of AI

Abstract

As generative AI tools become more accessible in education, questions are being asked about how students engage with them, particularly in creative contexts. Drawing on data from an international Erasmus+/eTwinning project involving students aged 13–15 from three countries (Slovenia, Spain, and Germany), this paper explores how adolescents use AI in school-based creative tasks. Activities such as writing poems, designing logos, and creating short stories were often completed using AI tools with little prompting from teachers. The students' creative work has shown clear, uncritical use of AI — treating it as a shortcut rather than a creative partner. Similarly, students were unable to recognise AI-generated writing, mistaking it for human-written text. This observation aligns with emerging research suggesting that young learners tend to adopt AI for convenience, often without questioning authorship, originality or ethical use. The study highlights the motivational value of AI in creative tasks, as well as the need for explicit guidance to foster critical AI literacy. While students are eager to adopt generative technologies, the findings suggest that educators must play a key role in fostering reflective engagement and ethical awareness. Without pedagogical support, AI has the potential to reinforce passivity rather than empower creativity and digital agency in young learners.