Sequential Human-AI Collaboration Impairs Narrative Creativity in University Students: A Randomized Controlled Trial

The rise of generative AI (GenAI) has sparked interest in whether human-AI collaboration can enhance creativity, yet empirical findings remain mixed. This study systematically compared 4 collaboration models (i.e., AI-first, AI-follow, AI-parallel, and human-only) using a randomized controlled experiment involving 112 college students. Participants completed a two-stage narrative story-writing task. Creativity was assessed by both trained human raters (N = 10) and a validated AI model, while creative self-efficacy was measured before and after the task. A residualized linear model was used to control baseline differences and covariates. Results showed that sequential collaboration models (i.e., AI-first and AI-follow) significantly impaired narrative creativity relative to human-only creation, and AI-parallel collaboration did not improve creativity. None of the models improved creative self-efficacy. These findings suggest that GenAI may even disrupt key cognitive mechanisms underlying narrative creativity. Using a rigorous research design, we examine how different models of human-AI collaboration shape creativity. Implications for human-AI co-creation in education and design are discussed.