ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ON TEACHERS’ CONFIDENCE IN USING GENERATIVE AI: A PRE- AND POST-TRAINING EVALUATION

Abstract

The paper examines how a specific professional development intervention will affect the confidence of middle school English teachers in Pakistan to adopt Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) in their teaching. This study is based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), with a sequential explanatory mixed-method design, which takes the form of quantitative survey and qualitative focus group interviews. The study of previous data of 200 teachers displayed low confidence rates with 10 percent having high confidence in the use of GAI. After the two-day intervention 50 least confident teachers, confidence tests were conducted after training and also proved positive by the use of paired sample t-test (p < 0.001). Qualitative analysis was used to bring out major themes that included fear on the first day, perceived usefulness, classroom transferability, and extended support. The research is a timely addition to the existing disproportionately small body of literature on GAI in education in Global South based settings and a practical contribution to teaching designing effective professional development. It finds that hands-on training, put into a context, can help overcome the confidence gap, but that this needs to continue on institutional levels to be able to integrate with pedagogy over the long-term.