From Proficiency to Pedagogy: A Mixed-Methods Study of In-Service Teachers' TPACK-GenAI and the Mediating Role of Pedagogical Knowledge

Synthesis: Mohebi and ElSayary examine how in-service teachers build the knowledge needed to integrate generative AI into classroom practice, framed through TPACK-GenAI — an extension of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge for generative AI. Using an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design, they surveyed 325 in-service teachers across 26 countries and conducted in-depth interviews with seven teachers.

Key Findings

• Technological Knowledge (TK), Pedagogical Knowledge (PK), and Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) were each significantly associated with teachers' overall TPACK-GenAI.
• Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK) serves as a key mediator, carrying part of the association between other knowledge components and teachers' TPACK-GenAI — consistent with the study's subtitle, the movement "from proficiency to Pedagogies and Teaching Strategies."
• Qualitative interviews illuminate how teachers translate GenAI proficiency into pedagogically sound classroom decisions, and where support is still needed.
• Findings reinforce that GenAI integration is a knowledge-and-pedagogy challenge, not merely a tool-access question.

What this means for practice

• Faculty developers. Build professional development around the pedagogical uses of GenAI rather than tool proficiency, since technological pedagogical knowledge carries the association between other knowledge components and overall TPACK-GenAI.
• Faculty developers. Design activities in which teachers have to translate GenAI proficiency into concrete classroom decisions, which is the step the interviews identified as the remaining gap.
• Teacher educators. Use TPACK-GenAI as the organizing frame for teacher-learning experiences that connect technical, content, and pedagogical knowledge instead of treating them as separate strands.
• Teachers. Justify each GenAI adoption by the pedagogical problem it solves, and record that reasoning, rather than adopting on the basis of tool access or novelty.

Limitations

• Evidence comes from a single voluntary survey of 325 in-service teachers spread across 26 countries; because the sample is not anchored in any one system, the reported associations between knowledge components may not hold within a specific national or school context.
• All knowledge measures are teachers' self-reported perceptions of their TPACK-GenAI rather than observation of classroom practice, which the interviews also relied on for the qualitative strand.
• The qualitative component rests on seven interviewees drawn from the larger survey, so those findings are illustrative rather than representative of the surveyed teachers.
• The mediation finding is estimated from the survey model rather than from longitudinal or experimental data, so it cannot establish that strengthening pedagogical knowledge causes gains in TPACK-GenAI.

Citation

Mohebi, L., & ElSayary, A. (2026). From proficiency to pedagogy: A mixed-methods study of in-service teachers' TPACK-GenAI and the mediating role of pedagogical knowledge. Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence, 10, 100599.