ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Higher Education
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Transformative Impact of Digital Tools on Quality Education and Sustainable DevelopmentView all articles
AI-Enhanced Civic Character Education for Digital Citizens: A Cross-Faculty Study
Provisionally accepted
- 1Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia Sekolah Pascasarjana, Bandung, Indonesia
- 2Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Bandung, Indonesia
- 3Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya, Indonesia
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
This mixed-methods experimental study investigated the effectiveness of AI-Based Civic Character Education in developing students' character and digital citizenship competencies. Involving 240 participants from the Faculties of Engineering and Humanities, the study compared an 18-session AI-based intervention with a traditional approach. Results indicated that the AI group demonstrated significantly greater improvements in civic character (d=0.51) and digital citizenship competencies (d=0.73). Mediation analysis revealed that 47.4% of AI's effect on character development was mediated by improvements in digital citizenship competencies, demonstrating its crucial role as a theoretical mechanism linking technology engagement with character outcomes. Another key finding was the variation in responses by discipline. Engineering students were more responsive to a structured approach and direct feedback, while humanities students demonstrated a stronger mediation pathway through digital competencies, highlighting the need for differentiated platform design. Overall technology acceptance was very high, demonstrating the feasibility of implementation. This study provides the first empirical evidence supporting the predictions of the UNESCO and OECD frameworks by validating a practical implementation model integrating AI in character education. The implications emphasize the need for a curriculum that integrates digital competencies and an adaptive approach that respects epistemological diversity across disciplines to prepare digital citizens with character.
Keywords: civic character education, Digital citizenship, Artificial intelligence (AI) in education, Cross-Faculty Study, AI-Based Learning Mediation
Received: 22 Aug 2025; Accepted: 24 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Warlim, Effendi, Fitria, Ibrahim and Hadiati. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Warlim Warlim, warlim_isya@upi.edu
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.