Primary Teachers’ Use of AI: Practices, Professional Learning, and Integration Barriers

This qualitative case study aimed to investigate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in primary school educators’ teaching and professional practices. It provides a unique perspective on grassroots experimentation, teacher barriers, and ethical dilemmas in a context of minimal policy direction. Fifteen educators were involved through semi-structured interviews, concurrent think-aloud protocols, and review of lesson plans. Data were interpreted through an expanded Technology Acceptance Model incorporating elements of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and the AI-TPACK framework to account for individual institutional and contextual factors. Findings indicate that educators employed AI tools for lesson planning, teaching content differentiation, assessment, and interactive media development, and self-directed professional learning. However, their adoption was constrained by several barriers, including inadequate infrastructure, fragmented and non-experiential training, ethical ambiguity, and a lack of school-based technical and pedagogical support. Moreover, educators were constrained further by time constraints, cultural resistance, and uneven leadership, most relying on personal initiative instead of systemic. The Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM) was not part of the a priori research design, but turned out to be a suitable framework to describe how educators use of AI evolves over time. The study’s results are summarised into a five-pillar framework for responsible and sustainable integration of AI, including systemic governance, equitable access, ongoing embedded training, curriculum and pedagogy alignment, and stakeholder engagement. Although grounded in the Cypriot context, the findings are of relevance to education systems around the world looking to incorporate AI in meaningful ways into teaching and learning.