Unravelling the Relationship between Brain Fog, Cognitive Fatigue, AI Tool Use, and Research Productivity among Research Scholars: A Correlational Study

Abstract

This paper explores the relations between brain fog, cognitive fatigue, the use of AI tools, and the research productivity of scholars who are involved in research. The study is needed to address how cognitive challenges and AI tools use jointly influence research productivity among scholars. The study used a cross-sectional correlational survey design where 70 research scholars in a Central University of Karnataka were used to gather the data using a structured questionnaire to be administered using the Google Forms. Statistical procedures were descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation coefficients, independent samples t-tests, multiple regression analyses, all analysed with JASP software. Findings point to the significant positive correlations between cognitive fatigue and research productivity, suggesting some process of compensation in the environment with the prevalence of academic pressure and work under time constraints. The use of AI tools had a strong connection with each of the studied variables, and it was the only significant predictor of research productivity in the regression model. Brain fog had non-significant weak correlations with both cognitive fatigue and productivity. The study emphasises the importance of AI tools as supportive educational technologies, but does not introduce them as interventionist in the sense of providing solutions to scholars.