AI-Driven Socratic Dialogues as Cognitive Scaffolds in Medical Scientific Writing
Diálogos socráticos mediados por inteligência artificial como andaimes cognitivos na redação científica médica
Auro del Giglio
Abstract
Medical students increasingly use large language models to generate manuscript text, bypassing the reasoning that scientific writing is meant to build. This monograph argues that the pedagogically defensible use of these tools is interrogative rather than generative. We map classical Socratic elements onto clinical writing tasks, compare the two architectures used to build Socratic writing tutors, describe how models are constrained to question rather than answer, and set out how to deploy such a coach in a medical curriculum. No study has yet tested this application directly; the supporting evidence is adjacent. A ready-to-use system prompt is supplied.
Keywords
Resumo
Estudantes de medicina recorrem cada vez mais a modelos de linguagem de grande escala para gerar o texto de manuscritos, contornando o raciocínio que a redação científica deveria desenvolver. Esta monografia argumenta que o uso pedagogicamente defensável dessas ferramentas é interrogativo, e não gerativo. Mapeamos os elementos socráticos clássicos em tarefas de redação clínica, comparamos as duas arquiteturas usadas para construir tutores socráticos de redação, descrevemos como os modelos são restringidos a perguntar em vez de responder e indicamos como implantar esse tipo de tutor em um currículo médico. Nenhum estudo testou diretamente essa aplicação até o momento; as evidências que a sustentam vêm de áreas adjacentes. Um prompt de sistema pronto para uso é fornecido.
Palavras-chave
Referências
1. Flower L, Hayes JR. A cognitive process theory of writing. Coll Compos Commun. 1981;32(4):365-87. https://doi.org/10.58680/ccc198115885.
2. Delavari S, Barzkar F, Rikers RMJP, et al. Teaching and learning clinical reasoning skill in undergraduate medical students: a scoping review. PLoS One. 2024;19(10):e0309606. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0309606. PMid:39413083.
3. Writing is thinking. Nat Rev Bioeng. 2025;3(6):431. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44222-025-00323-4.
4. Sanz-Tejeda A, Domínguez-Oller JC, Baldaquí-Escandell JM, Gómez-Díaz R, García-Rodríguez A. The impact of generative AI on academic reading and writing: a synthesis of recent evidence (2023-2025). Front Educ (Lausanne). 2025;10:1711718. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2025.1711718.
5. Gerlich M. AI tools in society: impacts on cognitive offloading and the future of critical thinking. Societies (Basel). 2025;15(1):6. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc15010006.
6. Liu G, Christian B, Dumbalska T, Bakker MA, Dubey R. AI assistance reduces persistence and hurts independent performance. arXiv. 2026:2604.04721. Preprint.
7. Izquierdo-Condoy JS, Arias-Intriago M, Tello-De-la-Torre A, Busch F, Ortiz-Prado E. Generative artificial intelligence in medical education: enhancing critical thinking or undermining cognitive autonomy? J Med Internet Res. 2025;27:e63903. https://doi.org/10.2196/76340. PMid:41183320.
8. Paul R, Elder L. Critical thinking: the art of Socratic questioning, Part III. J Dev Educ. 2008;31(3):34-5.
9. Oyler DR, Romanelli F. The fact of ignorance: revisiting the Socratic method as a tool for teaching critical thinking. Am J Pharm Educ. 2014;78(7):144. https://doi.org/10.5688/ajpe787144. PMid:25258449.
10. Oh RC. The Socratic method in medicine: the labor of delivering medical truths. Fam Med. 2005;37(8):537-9. PMid:16145625.
11. Stoddard HA, O’Dell DV. Would Socrates have actually used the “Socratic method” for clinical teaching? J Gen Intern Med. 2016;31(9):1092-6. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-016-3722-2. PMid:27130623.
12. Ho YR, Chen BY, Li CM. Thinking more wisely: using the Socratic method to develop critical thinking skills amongst healthcare students. BMC Med Educ. 2023;23(1):173. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-023-04134-2. PMid:36941597.
13. Sánchez JD. Integrating artificial intelligence and Socratic inquiry in medical education: a critical framework for clinical reasoning development. Research Square. 2026. Preprint. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8970982/v1.
14. North SM. The idea of a writing center. Coll Engl. 1984;46(5):433-46. https://doi.org/10.58680/ce198413354.
15. Reigstad TJ, McAndrew DA. Training tutors for writing conferences. Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English; 1984.
16. Liu Y, Gallagher J, Sterman S, August T. From crafting text to crafting thought: grounding AI writing support to writing center pedagogy. arXiv:2602.04047. 2026. Preprint. https://doi.org/10.1145/3772318.3790292.
17. Hugenroth P, Danry V, Maes P. Critical Inker: scaffolding critical thinking in AI-assisted writing through Socratic questioning. arXiv:2604.07167. 2026. Preprint.
18. Chang EY. Prompting large language models with the Socratic method. arXiv. 2023:2303.08769. Preprint. https://doi.org/10.1109/CCWC57344.2023.10099179.
19. Liu J, Huang Z, Xiao T, et al. SocraticLM: exploring Socratic personalized teaching with large language models. In: Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 37 (NeurIPS 2024); 2024; Vancouver, Canada. Red Hook: Curran Associates, Inc.; 2024. https://doi.org/10.52202/079017-2721.
20. Ding Y, Hu H, Zhou J, Chen Q, Jiang B, He L. Boosting large language models with Socratic method for conversational mathematics teaching. arXiv. 2024:2407.17349. Preprint. https://doi.org/10.1145/3627673.3679881.
21. Liu Y, Li C, Zhang T, et al. Discerning minds or generic tutors? Evaluating instructional guidance capabilities in Socratic LLMs. arXiv. 2025:2508.06583. Preprint.
22. Degen PB, Asanov I. Beyond automation: Socratic AI, epistemic agency, and the implications of the emergence of orchestrated multi-agent learning architectures. arXiv. 2025:2508.05116. Preprint.
23. Yong CL, Furqan MS, Lee JWK, et al. The use of large language models tuned with Socratic methods on the impact of medical students’ learning: a randomised controlled trial. JMIR Preprints. 2024. Preprint. https://doi.org/10.2196/preprints.57995.
24. Iroda Y. Transforming generative AI into a cognitive scaffold: a Socratic-structured model for developing academic writing skills. Int Sci Innov Res Conf. 2026;3(2):30-4.
25. Zhang C, Ju K, Bidoshi P, Yen YCG, Rzeszotarski JM. Friction: deciphering writing feedback into writing revisions through LLM-assisted reflection. In: Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems; 2025; New York. New York: Association for Computing Machinery; 2025. p. 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3714316.
26. Fan Y, Davis RL, Viberg O. From intention to text: AI-supported goal setting in academic writing. arXiv. 2026:2604.15800. Preprint.
Submetido em:
14/07/2026
Revisado em:
07/09/2026
Aceito em:
14/10/2026
Facebook
Google+
Twitter
LinkedIn
Mendeley
StumbleUpon
CiteULike
Reddit
Email