An Exploratory Study of Vietnamese EFL Students’ Engagement With AI Tools: From Acceptance to Ethical Use

Abstract

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools such as ChatGPT and Grammarly have rapidly entered English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education, offering new opportunities for feedback and learning autonomy while raising ethical concerns. This exploratory study examined Vietnamese translation students’ perceptions of GenAI through the combined lenses of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Self-Determination Theory (SDT). A survey of 44 undergraduates measured self-report ratings on perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEOU), autonomy, competence, and ethical use using a 32-item Likert-scale questionnaire. Results revealed uniformly high self-perceptions across all constructs, indicating strong subjective acceptance and confidence. Correlational analyses showed significant positive relationships among all variables, while regression analyses demonstrated that PU significantly predicted competence and autonomy, and competence alone predicted ethical use. These findings suggest that students’ ethical engagement with GenAI stems primarily from their perceived competence rather than ease or usefulness alone. The study highlights a developmental shift from mere AI acceptance toward ethical empowerment, emphasizing competence-based ethics and autonomy-supportive pedagogy. Integrating TAM and.. SDT provides a holistic framework to understand how cognitive beliefs and motivational needs jointly shape responsible AI literacy in EFL education. Pedagogical implications include designing guided AI literacy tasks that transform technological utility into ethical capability.