From Potential to Practice: Challenges of Integrating Artificial Intelligence Technologies in School Classrooms

Abstract

This study investigates the integration of Artificial Intelligence Technologies (AIT) into classroom teaching, focusing on three factors: teachers' access to AIT tools, the frequency of their use, and the key challenges and barriers to integrating AIT for e-learning. A quantitative, survey-based approach was employed to address the study's research questions. A 25-item questionnaire was administered to 90 elementary and secondary school teachers, and the data were analyzed descriptively and correlationally using SPSS (version 23). The findings reveal that teachers have limited access to various AIT applications, receive inadequate training, and face infrastructural challenges. More than half of the teachers (54%) reported using the Internet to prepare lessons and carry out other teaching activities. Despite recognizing AIT's potential to enhance teaching effectiveness, educators reported attitudinal and systemic barriers to its integration. This study offers original evidence on AIT integration in elementary and secondary classrooms, a context that remains underrepresented in the literature, by examining teachers' actual access, usage patterns, and the systemic barriers they face, and by situating these findings within established technology-adoption frameworks to offer policy-relevant insights.