Creation and Evaluation of a Pretertiary Artificial Intelligence (AI) Curriculum

• Published in: IEEE transactions on education Vol. 65; no. 1; pp. 30 - 39
• Main Authors: Chiu, Thomas K. F., Meng, Helen, Chai, Ching-Sing, King, Irwin, Wong, Savio, Yam, Yeung
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.02.2022; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Artificial Intelligence; Artificial intelligence (AI) education; Attitudes; Bibliographies; co-creation process; Collaboration; Colleges & universities; Competence; Computer Assisted Instruction; Curricula; curriculum design; Curriculum Development; Curriculum Evaluation; Curriculum Implementation; Education; Ethics; Evaluation; Foreign Countries; Government industry relations; Industries; Learning; pretertiary education; Qualitative analysis; Robots; Secondary School Students; Secondary schools; Student Attitudes; Student Motivation; Students; teacher education; Teachers; Hong Kong; Hong Kong China; China
• ISSN: 0018-9359; 1557-9638
• DOI: 10.1109/TE.2021.3085878

Contributions: The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)-Jockey Club AI for the Future Project (AI4Future) co-created the first pretertiary AI curriculum at the secondary school level for Hong Kong and evaluated its efficacy. This study added to the AI education community by introducing a new AI curriculum framework. The preposttest multifactors evaluation about students' perceptions of AI learning confirmed that the curriculum is effective in promoting AI learning. The teachers also confirmed the co-creation process enhanced their capacity to implement AI education. Background: AI4Future is a cross-sector project that engages five major partners-CUHK's Faculty of Engineering and Faculty of Education, secondary schools, Hong Kong government, and AI industry. A team of 14 professors collaborated with 17 principals and teachers from six secondary schools to co-create the curriculum. Research Questions: Would the curriculum significantly improve the student perceived competence, attitude, and motivation toward AI learning? How does the co-creation process benefit the implementation of the curriculum? Methodology: The participants were 335 students and eight teachers from the secondary schools. This study adopted a mix-method with quantitative data measures at pre- and post-questionnaires and qualitative data emphasizes teachers' perspectives on the co-creation process. Paired <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">{t} </tex-math></inline-formula>-tests and ANCOVAs, and thematic analysis were used to analyze the data. Findings: 1) students perceived greater competence and developed a more positive attitude to learn AI and 2) the co-creation process enhanced teachers' knowledge in AI, as well as fostered teachers' autonomy in bringing the subject matter into their classrooms.