Highland Wisdom: A Study on the Acceptance and Application of Generative AI in Teaching Among Primary and Secondary School Teachers in a Western Highland Region of China

Abstract

As generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) rapidly penetrates the field of education, the extent to which primary and secondary school teachers accept and use it in instructional practice has become an issue of growing scholarly and policy concern. Given the relative scarcity of empirical research on this topic in frontier ethnic minority regions of western China, this study focuses on primary and secondary school teachers in a western highland region and employs a questionnaire survey to conduct an exploratory investigation. A total of 40 valid questionnaires were collected. Using reliability analysis, descriptive statistics, and Pearson correlation analysis, the study examines teachers’ responses across the following dimensions: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, hedonic motivation, technology anxiety, technology trust, behavioral intention, relative advantage/task fit, and compatibility. The findings indicate that teachers in this region generally hold positive attitudes toward the use of GenAI in teaching. Scores for performance expectancy, hedonic motivation, and relative advantage/task fit are comparatively high, and behavioral intention remains at a moderately high level overall. Correlation analysis reveals that behavioral intention is significantly and positively correlated with performance expectancy, social influence, compatibility, hedonic motivation, and relative advantage/task fit, with the relationship between relative advantage/task fit and behavioral intention being the most pronounced. By contrast, technology anxiety does not exhibit a significant correlation with behavioral intention. These results suggest that teachers’ continued intention to use GenAI is more substantially grounded in perceived instructional value, task alignment, and organizational support than in technology-related anxiety, offering preliminary insights for designing teacher support frameworks for intelligent technology adoption in ethnic minority regions.