Understanding the Artificial Intelligence Literacy Between Novice and Experienced English Teachers in Indonesia

The massive utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) in educational settings has been a research trend for years. However, literature on AI literacy was lacking despite its potential effect on AI implementation in class. Responding to this gap, this sequential explanatory mixed-method study examined the AI literacy of in-service teachers (novice and experienced teachers) in Indonesia. An online survey of AI literacy was administered to 176 EFL teachers, consisting of novice teachers (n = 75) and experienced teachers (n = 101). The survey adopted the Artificial Intelligence Literacy Scale (AILS) proposed by Wang et al. (2023), which includes 12 items covering four constructs of AI literacy: awareness, usage, evaluation, and ethics. Follow-up interviews were then conducted with 20 selected participants: ten novice teachers and ten experienced teachers. An independent sample t-test was performed to analyze the quantitative data while thematic analysis was applied to analyze the follow-up qualitative data. Our results mainly revealed that teachers were least proficient in using AI and most knowledgeable about the potential misuse of AI. Several differences in the AI literacy between the two groups were also noted and need to be considered to develop an effective and suitable future teacher professional development program. Further implications for future research and pedagogy are discussed.