AI-Enabled Teaching Capability and Sustainable Education Practice among Teachers in Mountainous China: The Roles of OER-Enabled Pedagogical Capacity and Institutional Digital Support

This study examines how teachers' artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled teaching capability and open educational resources (OER)-enabled pedagogical capacity are associated with sustainable education practice in mountainous areas of China. It also assesses the indirect role of OER-enabled pedagogical capacity and the moderating role of institutional digital support.The study describes a cross-sectional quantitative survey of 462 teachers from 54 schools in 18 mountainous counties across Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Gansu, and Qinghai, using a 24-item questionnaire and partial least squares structural equation modelling with 5,000 bootstrap resamples. The analyzed results report positive associations between AI-enabled teaching capability and sustainable education practice (? = .331, p < .001), between AI capability and OER-enabled pedagogical capacity (? = .550, p < .001), and between OER capacity and sustainable practice (? = .390, p < .001). The indirect association is .215 and the interaction with institutional digital support is .134. The R² for sustainable practice is .475. The prediction claim is limited to predictive relevance within the cross-validation procedure, not demonstrated performance in new schools across different locations.This study integrates AI literacy, OER-enabled pedagogy, education for sustainable development, and socio-technical support in a teacher-centred model for geographically constrained schooling. Its conceptual contribution separates AI-related capability, open-resource adaptation, and institutional conditions. The proposed priorities combine teacher capability, openly licensed low-bandwidth resources, responsible AI governance, technical support, and professional learning communities.