Research on the Construction and Enhancement Pathways of Primary School Teachers’ Artificial Intelligence Literacy from the Perspective of AI‑TPACK

Abstract

The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming educational practice and reshaping the professional competencies required of teachers. Drawing on the AI-TPACK framework, this study aims to construct a context-sensitive AI literacy framework for primary school teachers and identify practical pathways for its development. A qualitative grounded theory approach was employed. Semi-structured interview data collected from primary school teachers were analysed with NVivo 12 through open, axial, and selective coding. The analysis generated 32 initial categories, which were subsequently integrated into four core dimensions: AI education awareness, AI education knowledge, AI-supported teaching competence, and AI education ethics. Three reserved interview transcripts were used to test theoretical saturation, and no new concepts, categories, or relationships emerged. The findings indicate that primary school teachers’ AI literacy is not limited to technical proficiency but constitutes an integrated professional competence characterised by an “awareness-driven, knowledge-supported, competence-oriented, and ethics-guided” mechanism. The study further identifies four major challenges: insufficient recognition of AI’s educational value, fragmented AI-related knowledge, superficial integration of AI into classroom practice, and inadequate awareness of ethical risks. To address these challenges, five development pathways are proposed: strengthening teachers’ AI education awareness, establishing an AI-TPACK-oriented training system, promoting practice through teaching-research communities, reinforcing ethical education and institutional safeguards, and developing multidimensional evaluation mechanisms. This study extends the application of AI-TPACK to primary education and provides a theoretical and practical reference for supporting teachers’ professional development in AI-enhanced educational environments.