The growing integration of open digital tools and artificial intelligence (AI) into secondary education raises important questions about how these technologies influence student research practices, creativity, and epistemic autonomy. This study presents findings from a two year longitudinal quasi-experimental research examining the relationship between students’ use of open AI tools and the development of creativity in physics research papers.

The study followed the same cohort of high school students (N = 57) at a general gymnasium in Croatia across three academic years (2023/2024 and 2025/2026). In the first phase, students’ research papers were assessed using an analytical creativity rubric based on the AAC&U VALUE framework, alongside a survey on motivation and digital tool usage. In the second phase, a follow-up survey examined students’ attitudes toward AI tools in learning, their perceived contribution of AI to the creative process, and self-assessed creativity.

Quantitative analyses showed no statistically significant differences between control and experimental groups in overall attitudes or self-assessed creativity. However, Spearman correlation analysis revealed a significant positive association between the frequency of AI tool use and students’ perceptions of AI’s contribution to both the creative process (ρ = .358, p = .007) and the overall quality of their research papers (ρ = .403, p = .002). Notable gender differences were also observed: male students reported significantly more positive attitudes toward AI tools in the context of research paper development, while no gender differences emerged in general perceptions of AI as a learning support tool.

The findings suggest that AI tools do not function as direct generators of creativity but rather as cognitive scaffolds whose impact develops gradually depending on the intensity and context of use. These results have direct implications for open science education, highlighting the need for structured, pedagogically grounded integration of open AI tools to support responsible, reflective, and creative research practices among emerging researchers.