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Exploring Teachers' Perception of Artificial Intelligence: The Socio-emotional Deficiency as Opportunities and Challenges in Human-AI Complementarity in K-12 Education

Soon-young Oh, Yongsu Ahn

TL;DR

This study investigates how K-12 teachers perceive the complementarity of artificial intelligence across eleven professional tasks using a mixed-method design with 100 elementary teachers in South Korea and 12 in-depth interviews. It combines a two-level task taxonomy, Analytic Hierarchy Process to derive Perceived AI Complementarity Scores, task-ability mapping to fourteen cognitive abilities, and k-means clustering to identify task groups. Findings show strong support for AI in administrative and automation tasks, while socio-emotional capabilities are viewed as a weakness, presenting both challenges (guidance and relationships) and opportunities (fair, neutral decision-making). The work broadens the discussion of AI in education beyond classrooms and generative AI, highlighting the need for tailored, educator-centered AI adoption that accounts for socio-emotional gaps and diverse teacher roles.

Abstract

In schools, teachers play a multitude of roles, serving as educators, counselors, decision-makers, and members of the school community. With recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI), there is increasing discussion about how AI can assist, complement, and collaborate with teachers. To pave the way for better teacher-AI complementary relationships in schools, our study aims to expand the discourse on teacher-AI complementarity by seeking educators' perspectives on the potential strengths and limitations of AI across a spectrum of responsibilities. Through a mixed method using a survey with 100 elementary school teachers in South Korea and in-depth interviews with 12 teachers, our findings indicate that teachers anticipate AI's potential to complement human teachers by automating administrative tasks and enhancing personalized learning through advanced intelligence. Interestingly, the deficit of AI's socio-emotional capabilities has been perceived as both challenges and opportunities. Overall, our study demonstrates the nuanced perception of teachers and different levels of expectations over their roles, challenging the need for decisions about AI adoption tailored to educators' preferences and concerns.

Exploring Teachers' Perception of Artificial Intelligence: The Socio-emotional Deficiency as Opportunities and Challenges in Human-AI Complementarity in K-12 Education

TL;DR

This study investigates how K-12 teachers perceive the complementarity of artificial intelligence across eleven professional tasks using a mixed-method design with 100 elementary teachers in South Korea and 12 in-depth interviews. It combines a two-level task taxonomy, Analytic Hierarchy Process to derive Perceived AI Complementarity Scores, task-ability mapping to fourteen cognitive abilities, and k-means clustering to identify task groups. Findings show strong support for AI in administrative and automation tasks, while socio-emotional capabilities are viewed as a weakness, presenting both challenges (guidance and relationships) and opportunities (fair, neutral decision-making). The work broadens the discussion of AI in education beyond classrooms and generative AI, highlighting the need for tailored, educator-centered AI adoption that accounts for socio-emotional gaps and diverse teacher roles.

Abstract

In schools, teachers play a multitude of roles, serving as educators, counselors, decision-makers, and members of the school community. With recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI), there is increasing discussion about how AI can assist, complement, and collaborate with teachers. To pave the way for better teacher-AI complementary relationships in schools, our study aims to expand the discourse on teacher-AI complementarity by seeking educators' perspectives on the potential strengths and limitations of AI across a spectrum of responsibilities. Through a mixed method using a survey with 100 elementary school teachers in South Korea and in-depth interviews with 12 teachers, our findings indicate that teachers anticipate AI's potential to complement human teachers by automating administrative tasks and enhancing personalized learning through advanced intelligence. Interestingly, the deficit of AI's socio-emotional capabilities has been perceived as both challenges and opportunities. Overall, our study demonstrates the nuanced perception of teachers and different levels of expectations over their roles, challenging the need for decisions about AI adoption tailored to educators' preferences and concerns.
Paper Structure (10 sections, 1 figure, 1 table)

This paper contains 10 sections, 1 figure, 1 table.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Study Method
  3. Analysis Results
  4. Teachers' perception: Administrative affairs perceived as the most viable tasks for AI
  5. Task-ability mapping: Socio-emotional capabilities perceived as low AI proficiency
  6. Opportunities and challenges of AI: Advanced intelligence and socio-emotional deficiency
  7. Advanced intelligence in personalized learning and automation.
  8. Lack of social-emotional capabilities as challenges in teaching and life guidance.
  9. Lack of socio-emotional capabilities as opportunities for fair and non-authoritative decision-making.
  10. Conclusion

Figures (1)

  • Figure 1: The overview of quantitative analysis and results. (A) Task-wise perceived AI complementarity scores (PCS) from the survey using AHP method: Higher scores indicates AI being perceived as capable of complementing humans. (B) Task-ability mapping between tasks and abilities. (C) Task groups identified from clustering the tasks using the mapping in (B).