Perceived Risk of Generative AI Adoption in Initial Teacher Education Programmes

Abstract

Generative AI (GenAI) is reshaping the paradigms of learning and creativity in higher education environments, presenting a host of benefits but also considerable concerns and challenges. One such challenge is that of perceived risk. This is a function of the extent to which an individual senses there to be potential threats or unfavourable outcomes, giving rise to varying apprehensions towards new technology use. New technology adoption involves a fine balance between confidently leveraging the technology’s functionalities to deliver practical benefits and between weighing the potential risks of adoption. Previous studies investigating the impact of perceived risk on GenAI adoption in higher education have yielded mixed results, but overall limited empirical evidence exists. Some studies have found that perceived risk has a significant negative influence on the attitudes of higher education students’ towards GenAI and consequently acts as a deterrent towards their behavioural intention to adopt. Others indicate that perceived risk is not a significant barrier to GenAI adoption intention, with the practical advantages of academic support, increased productivity, and ease of use outweighing student risk-related concerns such as data privacy, content authenticity and misinformation, academic misconduct, skill degradation, and the stifling of intellectual development. This study offers a more nuanced investigation of perceived risk in the context of students enrolled in undergraduate initial teacher education programmes in Ireland. This is an intriguing context given such students play a dual role – they not only need to consider the perceived risks of AI chatbot use within their own academic studies but also in the context of acting as student teachers within an external school environment. The paper presents a quantitative and qualitative assessment of 290 student responses in relation to the varying dimensions of perceived GenAI risk. It offers a number of theoretical and practical implications; from a theoretical perspective, it highlights the rationale to extend existing technology adoption models with perceived risk as a key exogenous variable, while from a practical perspective it offers a number of recommendations to mitigate perceived risks and shape more effective student engagement with GenAI in educational environments.