Smart Learning in the Age of AI: How AI Influences Personalized Learning and Academic Performance Through Student Engagement

Abstract

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping teaching and learning in higher education by enabling more flexible and technology-enhanced learning experiences. This study examines how AI usage influences students perceived personalized learning and academic performance, with student engagement as a mediating mechanism. Drawing on a quantitative survey of 202 university students in Malaysia, data were analyzed using SPSS to test the proposed relationships. Our findings indicate that students actively use a wide range of AI tools, particularly generative AI chatbots and writing assistants, which are primarily applied to support exam preparation, assignment completion, and conceptual understanding. Our findings show that AI usage is positively associated with both personalized learning and academic performance. In addition, student engagement plays a mediating role in these relationships. Our study contributes to the emerging literature on AI in education by providing empirically grounded evidence from a Southeast Asian higher education context and by highlighting engagement as a key explanatory mechanism.