Pedagogical Design of K-12 Artificial Intelligence Education: A Systematic Review

In response to the growing popularity of artificial intelligence (AI) usage in daily life, AI education is increasingly being provided at the K-12 level, with relevant initiatives being launched worldwide. Examining how these programs have been implemented and summarizing useful experiences is thus imperative. Although prior reviews have described the characteristics of AI education programs in publications, the papers reviewed were mostly nonempirical reports, and the analysis typically only involved a descriptive summary. The current review focuses on the most recent empirical studies on AI teaching programs in K-12 contexts through a systematic search of the Web of Science database from 2010 to 2022. To provide a comprehensive overview of the status of AI teaching and learning (T&L), 32 empirical studies were analyzed both descriptively and thematically. We analyzed (1) the research status, (2) the pedagogical design, and (3) the assessments and outcomes of the AI teaching programs. An increasing number of studies have focused on AI education at the K-12 stage, but most of them have a small sample size. Moreover, the data were mostly collected through interviews and self-reports. We reviewed the pedagogical design of AI teaching programs by using Gerlach and Ely’s pedagogical design model. The results comprehensively delineated current AI teaching programs through nine dimensions: learning theory, pedagogical approach, T&L activities, learning content, scale, teaching resources, prior knowledge prerequisite, aims and objectives, assessment, and learning outcome. The results highlighted the positive impact of current AI teaching programs on students’ motivation, engagement, and attitude. However, we observed a lack of sufficient research objectively measuring students’ knowledge acquisition as learning outcomes. Overall, in this paper, we discussed relevant findings in terms of research trends, learning content, teaching units, characteristics of the pedagogical design, and assessment and evaluation by providing illustrations of exemplary designs; we also discussed future directions for research and practice in AI education in the K-12 context.