Role of Artificial Intelligence and Student Learning in Higher Education: A Qualitative Study in District Gwadar

Abstract

Despite Artificial Intelligence tools becoming central to academic life in universities worldwide, the experiences of students and faculty in resource-constrained and geographically peripheral settings remain largely unexplored (Schmidt et al., 2025). This qualitative research explores the role of AI in students’ learning in higher education institutions (HEIs) based in District Gwadar, Balochistan, Pakistan, which is strategically an important region of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) but lacks digital infrastructure, and the institutions are not yet ready for it. The study will be based on a constructivist worldview and an interpretivist epistemology. It will employ a reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006, 2021) of 20 semi-structured interviews with 10 teachers and 10 students from the University of Gwadar and Gwadar Degree College.The analysis resulted in three main themes, namely, Accessibility of AI Tool and Its Relationship with Student Learning; AI-Engaged Academic Activities and Student Learning; and Faculty Preparedness towards AI and Student Learning. The results show that structural connectivity barriers limit access to AI for most students, that AI engagement is mostly informal, self-directed, and pedagogically unsupported, but that the faculty attitudinal disposition, in the absence of institutional policy, has become the principal determinant of whether students encounter AI as a guided educational resource. The contextual qualitative understanding from the study provides an alternative to literature dominated by quantitative studies. It has many implications for institutional policy, faculty development, and digital equity.