Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has entered classrooms faster than the evidence needed to judge its educational value. Most published work so far reports gains in task performance, speed, and perceived personalisation, while far less attention has been paid to what happens to the qualities that education exists to build: the ability to think without assistance, to produce original ideas, to solve unfamiliar problems, and to understand concepts deeply enough to transfer them. This paper develops the research foundation and the research contribution for a study that compares student learning and creativity in the pre-AI era and the AI-assisted era. Drawing on cognitive offloading theory, the desirable difficulties and productive failure literatures, sociocultural theories of scaffolding, selfdetermination theory, and the componential model of creativity, the paper argues that the educational effect of GenAI depends less on whether students use it than on the cognitive role it plays: a substitute that performs the thinking, or a scaffold that supports the student in performing it. The paper contributes (1) an integrative Cognitive Role of AI framework that links patterns of AI use to learning and creativity outcomes through four mechanisms, (2) a set of testable propositions about moderation by educational level, field of study, and frequency of use, (3) a convergent mixed-methods design that combines cohort comparison, a controlled experiment, and a paired studentteacher perception study, and (4) a practice-oriented model of responsible AI use for teachers and institutions. No empirical results are reported; the paper is a theory-building and protocol contribution intended to guide and justify the forthcoming data collection.

Prof. Vishwas Kenchi, Saloni Palkar, Prajakta Pandhare, "Student Learning and Creativity in the Pre-AI and AI-Assisted ERA" International Journal of Advance Research in Science, Management, Engineering and Technology, V1(4): Page(90-102) September - October 2026. ISSN: 3139-1141. www.ijarsmet.com. Published by Scientific and Academic Research Publishing.