Abstract

Although critical reading, local wisdom, and artificial intelligence literacy have each drawn increasing scholarly attention, previous studies tend to treat these elements separately within a single institution, leaving their combined implications for teaching-material development largely unexamined; this analysis examines them jointly across more than one institution. This study analyzes the needs for critical reading teaching materials based on Buton maritime local wisdom in the AI era across three universities in the Buton Islands. A convergent mixed-methods design integrated document assessment (n = 9), a student survey (n = 63; 19, 29, and 15 per institution), and interviews with three lecturers. The composite institutional indices were 61.8, 42.9, and 40.7 on a 100-point scale, one above and two at or below the 50-point threshold separating the Moderate and Low categories used in this study, while the semester-lesson-plan and teaching-material sub-indices ranged from 40.0 to 62.4. While 88.9% of the 63 students surveyed reported using ChatGPT and 82.5% relied on it for assignments, only 23.8% could verify its output, a gap lecturers echoed by describing current materials as supporting basic language competence more than systematic critical reading, local wisdom, or ethical AI use. These gaps in critical reading, cultural relevance, and AI-use guidance indicate a need for teaching materials that integrate Buton maritime local wisdom, tiered critical reading activities, multimodal presentation, and AI literacy within a single pedagogical design, offering teaching-material developers and Indonesian-language lecturers an empirical foundation for materials that are contextual, humanistic, and responsive to AI-era learning challenges.