Perceived Utility Moderates Motivational Intervention Effects in Learning to Teach Responsibly with GenAI

Synthesis: Boos, Eder, and Lachner (2026) test whether a scaffolded utility-value intervention improves pre-service teachers' integration of technological, pedagogical, and ethical knowledge (GenAI-TPEK) for responsible AI use in teaching, in an experimental field study of 158 pre-service teachers assigned to a utility-value intervention, a scaffolded utility-value intervention, or control. The interventions produced no general effects on knowledge acquisition or integration, but exploratory moderation analyses showed the utility-value intervention was actually detrimental to knowledge integration for learners who already began with high perceived utility-value.

Key Findings

• A utility-value intervention produced no significant overall effects on pre-service teachers' knowledge acquisition or knowledge integration in an experimental field study (N = 158).
• Adding scaffolds to the utility-value intervention did not change outcomes.
• Exploratory moderation analyses revealed the intervention was detrimental to knowledge integration among pre-service teachers who entered with high initial perceived utility-value.
• Findings point to aptitude-treatment interactions: motivational support should be tailored to learners' individual prerequisites rather than applied uniformly.

What this means for practice

• Teacher educators. Diagnose pre-service teachers' perceived utility-value before adding motivational prompts: the utility-value intervention was detrimental to knowledge integration for learners who entered with high initial perceived utility-value.
• Teacher educators. Do not assume that adding scaffolds strengthens a motivational intervention — the scaffolded condition performed no differently from the unscaffolded intervention or the control condition.
• Teacher educators. Support self-referential processing explicitly within utility-value activities and match motivational support to individual starting points rather than applying it uniformly across a cohort.
• Teacher educators. Pair motivational support with concrete instructional designs that connect ethical reasoning to the specific affordances and risks of each AI application, rather than relying on generic principles.
• Researchers. Design longitudinal studies that capture intraindividual change in Motivation and professional knowledge, since this field study measured only cross-sectional, end-product outcomes.

Limitations

• The experiment was embedded in a single 45-minute lecture of one German university's Master of Education program (N = 158 pre-service teachers, 68% female), and the authors state the short duration limited how far internal motivational changes could develop.
• Knowledge integration was measured only as an end product, so the underlying cognitive processes during learning were not captured.
• Worked examples were provided uniformly to all participants, which the authors state may have reduced sensitivity to detect motivational effects.
• In-video guidance and segmented Reflection tasks were combined, precluding conclusions about the isolated effect of each scaffolding element.

Citation

Boos, J., Eder, T., & Lachner, A. (2026). Perceived utility moderates motivational intervention effects in learning to teach responsibly with GenAI. Computers and Education Open, 10, 100324.