Interrogating the Machine: Integrating Hercule Poirot's “Little Grey Cells” Deductive Framework into AI Literacy and Critical Prompt Engineering in Education
Abstract
to use it safely. This study examines the mismatch between adoption, model reliability, and student
verification behaviour, and derives a cognitive scaffold from an unexpected source: the deductive
procedure of the fictional detective Hercule Poirot. A systematic literature review of studies
published between 2021 and 2026 was combined with descriptive time-series analysis of sixty-one
months of global relative search-volume data for four query strings. The search data show that
interest in operating generative systems reached the normalised ceiling of the index, whereas
interest in governing them within schools remained at the measurement floor, returning zero in
fifty-five of sixty-one months. The reviewed literature converges on three findings: high adoption
among students, persistent model hallucination on complex academic queries, and low rates of
systematic cross-checking against primary sources. From this convergence the study derives a four-
stage framework detailed observation, contradiction identification, alibi verification, and logical
conclusion that repositions the chatbot as a witness under examination rather than an authority.
The framework is conceptual and awaits empirical validation.
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