Effects of Gen AI in Enhancing Pre-service Teachers' Instructional Design Competency: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) on pre-service teachers' instructional design skills, distinguishing between immediate task performance and the development of lasting competency. Employing a quasi-experimental design, this study tracked 30 pre-service teachers from a university in China over a four-week period. Data on their instructional design tasks were collected via expert ratings and self-assessments at three stages: a pre-test, a post-test one week later with GenAI-supported intervention, and a delayed post-test one week later without the tool. The results revealed three key findings: (1) The GenAI intervention significantly enhanced participants' immediate instructional design performance.(2) These gains were sustained in the delayed post-test, suggesting a genuine development of underlying instructional design competency.(3) This positive effect, however, was not mediated by the participants' AI teaching self-efficacy. These findings provide crucial empirical evidence that GenAI can be an effective tool for fostering durable professional skills in teacher education, beyond simply aiding in-the-moment task completion.