Chi-Jung Sui, Yi-Ning Kelly Huang, P.S. Sreedevi, Shiang-Yao Liu, Chun-Yen Chang
As generative artificial intelligence tools become embedded in educational practice, higher education institutions face urgent demands to prepare preservice teachers for AI integration. This study examined whether explicit instruction about GAI mechanisms is associated with changes in preservice teachers’ epistemic beliefs and self-regulated learning capacities during hands-on AI experience. Using a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design, 99 preservice teachers in India were assigned to two workshop conditions: one receiving explicit GAI conceptual instruction followed by AI-TPACK training, and the other receiving AI-TPACK training with extended hands-on practice only. Mixed-design ANOVAs followed by analyses of covariance indicated that beliefs about the structure of GAI-generated content and SRL planning showed robust Group × Time differences, with group effects that remained significant after controlling for baseline differences. A third interaction, for SRL adaptation, did not survive covariate adjustment and is therefore treated as exploratory. Qualitative analysis helped contextualize these patterns, with the conceptual instruction group showing expansion in ethical awareness and teacher role reconceptualization. These findings provide preliminary evidence that explicit instruction about GAI mechanisms may support more adaptive epistemic beliefs and self-regulated engagement with AI tools in short-term professional development contexts. © 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Department of Learning and Materials Design, University of Taipei, Taipei, Taiwan; Graduate Institute of Science Education, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan; Gandhigram Rural Institute, Gandhigram, India; Department of Earth Sciences, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan; Institute for Research Excellence in Learning Sciences, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan; Department of Biology, Universitas Negeri Malang, Malang, Indonesia; Graduate School of Education, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taoyuan, Taiwan
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