Research Article
K-12 Teachers' Perspectives on AI Use Through the Lens of Activity Theory
Synthesis: Lee & Anson (2027) use activity theory to explore how Australian K-12 teachers perceive AI and its impact on education, drawing on qualitative data collected in April/May 2023 — roughly six months into the sudden global recognition of generative AI. Thematic analysis identified six major themes capturing in-service teachers' views: that AI is unsuitable, impersonal, imperfect, uncertain, assisting, and inevitable. The study theorizes activity theory in an AI world, highlighting the complex, nuanced, and often contradictory sentiments teachers hold, and positioning AI as a tool-mediated, goal-directed mediator within the school activity system.
Key Findings
- Six themes of teacher perception. Teachers characterized AI as unsuitable (for their context), impersonal (lacking relational warmth), imperfect (error-prone/unreliable), uncertain (opaque/unpredictable), assisting (useful for routine tasks), and inevitable (a force to be reckoned with).
- Activity theory as a framing. The study conceptualizes AI as a tool/mediator within the school activity system (subject, tools, object, rules, community, division of labor), arguing that digital tools — AI included — do not force action but mediate goal-directed activity; humans (not tools) retain agency.
- Contradictory, nuanced sentiments. Teachers' views were simultaneously favorable (assisting) and skeptical (unsuitable, impersonal, imperfect, uncertain), and resigned (inevitable) — a complexity that individual-belief models may flatten.
- Context sensitivity. AI as a mediating tool interacts with the specific learning environment (tools, activities, community), so its adoption and meaning vary by school context.
Implications for AI in Education
The study demonstrates how activity theory reframes teacher sentiment as an expression of the whole activity system rather than isolated attitudes. For practice, it implies that addressing teachers' concerns requires engaging the school's tools, rules, community, and division of labor — not just training individual teachers. The six-theme framework (unsuitable, impersonal, imperfect, uncertain, assisting, inevitable) offers a nuanced vocabulary for teacher professional development and AI adoption in K-12 settings, and connects to the companion quantitative study Lee & Granziera (2026).
Connected Concepts
Connected Articles
- Activity Theory Teachers Adoption AI Sem 2026 — Activity theory as a lens on teachers' adoption of AI (SEM)
Citation
Lee, J., & Anson, D. W. J. (2027). K-12 teachers' perspectives on AI use in education through the lens of activity theory. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning, 22, 5.