Development and Validation of a Scale to Assess Trust in AI-Assisted English Writing Among Chinese University Students

The purpose of this study is to develop and validate the Trust Scale for AI-assisted English writing targeted at Chinese university students (TS-AIEW). In accordance with well-established scientific protocols, we developed the preliminary version of the TS-AIEW and validated its performance by leveraging date derived from 527 valid survey questionnaires completed by Chinese university students. This dataset was split into two distinct subsamples: 257 responses were designated for the implementation of exploratory factor analysis (EFA), while the remaining 270 were allocated to conduct confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). During the EFA and CFA procedures, a total of 8 items were eliminated on account of low item-total correlation coefficients, values of corrected item-total correlations and factor loadings. The finalized TS-AIEW, consisting of 20 items, comprises four distinct dimensions: goal alignment, transparency, competency, and trust intention. For future research, scholars may opt to directly adopt this validated TS-AIEW or assess its applicability and validity across varied demographic groups and research contexts.