The impact of AI integration in project preparation in education course on pre-service teachers’ innovativeness, AI anxiety, attitudes, and acceptance

The rapid integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in education has transformed teacher education programs. This study examined the effects of incorporating AI tools into a Project Preparation in Education course for pre-service teachers, focusing on individual innovativeness, AI anxiety, AI attitudes, and AI acceptance. Using a single-group pre-test and post-test design, validated scales were administered to 34 pre-service teachers before and after the intervention. Paired-samples t-tests with Holm–Bonferroni corrections revealed significant improvements in AI attitudes (gₐv = 0.64) and AI acceptance (gₐv = 0.70). Individual innovativeness increased slightly, primarily in opinion leadership subdimension (gₐv = 0.35), whereas AI anxiety showed no significant change (gₐv ≈ 0.05). These medium-to-large gains. underscore the potential of guided and AI-supported instruction to enhance teachers’ readiness for AI integration across the stages of the academic writing process. However, the absence of a control group limits causal inference, and the results should be interpreted as correlational evidence of change. Overall, the study highlights both the promise and boundaries of short-term AI interventions in teacher education, offering implications for curriculum design and professional development in AI-driven learning environments.