GenAI Literacy and Students' Exploitative and Exploratory Innovation: The Moderating Role of Critical Thinking

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) literacy, encompassing the knowledge, skills, and attitudes for effective use, is becoming essential in education. However, its distinct associations with exploitative versus exploratory innovation and the role of critical thinking remain unclear. Grounded in social cognitive theory, this study surveyed 228 students to examine these relationships. GenAI literacy was positively associated with exploitative innovation and showed a U-shaped association with exploratory innovation, in which benefits emerged only after a literacy threshold; the U-shaped association was robust to correction for multiple comparisons. Critical thinking negatively moderated the association between GenAI literacy and exploitative innovation, and this interaction was robust to correction for multiple comparisons; the hypothesized moderation of the U-shaped exploratory association, in contrast, did not reach the 0.05 level and did not receive empirical support. The findings extend theory by differentiating how GenAI literacy relates to distinct innovation types and offer practical guidance-drawn from the supported associations and from theoretical reasoning-for fostering balanced human-AI collaboration. Because participation was voluntary, the self-selected sample may have overestimated the reported associations, and all results should be interpreted with this caveat in mind.