The impact of the artificial intelligence (AI) Art Generator in pre-service art teacher training

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is common in education recently. As pre-service teachers’ attitudes and behaviors towards the use of AI potentially influence the learning process and outcomes of their future students, it is necessary to know the impact of AI in pre-service teachers' training. This study aims to explore pre-service art teachers' attitudes toward using the current AI art generator and their perceptions of using it in their future careers. 45 Pre-service art teachers with no AI art generator experience participated and were distributed into eight groups. They used the AI art generator to draw pictures by selecting and revising keywords. They could discuss keywords within their groups. In the first round, the participants need to draw a similar picture as the trainer displayed. In the second round, participants could draw any picture they liked according to their own opinions. After class, participants filled out an online questionnaire concerning their experience of using the AI art generator and their opinions of using it in their future careers, including keywords they used and the times of keyword revision. Half of the groups thought that the AI art generator did not create the pictures they wanted according to the keywords they provided, and the times at which the keywords changed in these groups were much higher than in the other groups. Participants who thought the AI generated the pictures they wanted showed a much higher preference for using AI in the future. The majority of pre-service art teachers were interested in AI art generators. They believed that AI tools could help them prepare course materials, provide inspiration, and benefit their interactions with students in the future. However, they found that it took a lot of time to revise keywords, which represents the necessity to enhance their information literacy and ability to use educational technology. It also places new demands on our current education to adapt to the AI era.