A Comparative Case Study on ChatGPT, Grammarly, and Quillbot in Enhancing the English Writing Skill of EFL Students at Universitas Negeri Semarang

The growing prevalence of artificial intelligence (AI) in language education has altered the academic writing habits, especially among English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students. The paper is aimed to examine the relative impacts of AI-based writing aids, ChatGPT, Grammarly, and Quillbot, on motivation enhancement and content-generation in EFL graduate student at Universitas Negeri Semarang. Using a qualitative comparative case study design, the data were gathered using interviews based on semi-structured interviews with the participants and academic writing samples of the students. The thematic analysis indicated that AI tools have had a substantial effect on the motivation of learners by eliminating anxiety about writing, enhancing confidence, and promoting them to continue academic writing activities. In addition to the superficial linguistic accuracy, the tools also facilitated the higher-order writing skills, such as idea generation, coherence, organization of arguments, and academic tone. The use of generative AI was especially useful in brainstorming and concept development, with grammar and paraphrasing tools helping to make it more clear and lexically diverse. Nevertheless, the results have also pointed at a conflict between greater learner agency and possible dependence, as it should be stressed that critical engagement and ethical use of AI-generated feedback should be considered important. The students also expressed a high level of awareness of academic integrity and perceived AI tools as supplementary scaffolds and not substitutions of autonomous thinking. The novelty of the given work is the establishment of the empirical evidence of the Indonesian graduate EFL setting and the incorporation of motivation and cognitive approaches to explain the development of AI-assisted writing. The findings indicate that AI-based writing tools have the potential to improve affective and cognitive aspects of academic writing, in the cases where these tools are used within guided and ethically informed pedagogical paradigms.