A Digital Sustainability Lens: Investigating Medical Students’ Adoption Intentions for AI-Powered NLP Tools in Learning Environments

Mostafa Aboulnour Salem ()
Additional contact information
Mostafa Aboulnour Salem: Deanship of Development and Quality Assurance, King Faisal University, Al-Ahsa 31982, Saudi Arabia

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 14, 1-18

Abstract: This study investigates medical students’ intentions to adopt AI-powered Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Copilot) within educational contexts aligned with the perceived requirements of digital sustainability. Based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), data were collected from 301 medical students in Saudi Arabia and analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). The results indicate that Performance Expectancy (PE) (β = 0.65), Effort Expectancy (EE) (β = 0.58), and Social Influence (SI) (β = 0.53) collectively and significantly predict Behavioral Intention (BI), explicating 62% of the variance in BI (R 2 = 0.62). AI awareness did not significantly influence students’ responses or the relationships among constructs, possibly because practical familiarity and widespread exposure to AI-NLP tools exert a stronger influence than general awareness. Moreover, BI exhibited a strong positive effect on perceptions of digital sustainability (PDS) (β = 0.72, R 2 = 0.51), highlighting a meaningful link between AI adoption and sustainable digital practices. Consequently, these findings indicate the strategic role of AI-driven NLP tools as both educational innovations and key enablers of digital sustainability, aligning with global frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 4 and 9. The study also concerns AI’s transformative potential in medical education and recommends further research, particularly longitudinal studies, to better understand the evolving impact of AI awareness on students’ adoption behaviours.

Keywords: digital sustainability; medical students; AI-empowered NLP tools; UTAUT; PLS-SEM; sustainable development goals; ChatGPT; Copilot (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/14/6379/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/14/6379/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:14:p:6379-:d:1699928

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().