High School Teachers' Ai Literacy and Responsible Ai Use: Evidence from District Jamshoro, Sindh

Abstract

The rapid integration of AI in the field of education demands that teachers possess the knowledge and skills to use AI tools responsibly and effectively. As AI becomes more prevalent in the education industry, teachers must be AI literate and understand how to use AI tools responsibly. However, empirical results in the rural and semi-urban school settings in developing countries are still scarce. This is a quantitative cross-sectional study which aims to investigate the level of AI literacy among the high schoolers (Grades 9-10) teachers of District Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan and responsible use of AI among the teachers and what factors predict their use of AI. A total of 250 high school teachers were randomly sampled from government secondary schools using stratified sampling technique, stratified by geographic location (urban, semi-urban, and rural) and given a validated survey instrument. Data analysis was done by using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, one-way ANOVA, and multiple linear regression in SPSS v.27 software. The results show that overall, the mean score for AI literacy (M = 2.58) is lower than the average, and the two highest sub-dimensions are Ethical AI Awareness (M = 2.72) and general AI Awareness (M = 2.84) on a 5-point scale. The implementation of responsible AI practices was uneven, with 14% of teachers reporting that they always had data privacy practices and 27.2% of teachers always checking AI-generated content. Ethical AI Awareness (β = .358, p < .001) and AI Tool Usage (β = .312, p < .001) were the strongest predictors of responsible AI use. Other factors that also played an important role were teaching experience, and higher education level and institutional support. Lack of training program (82.4% agreement), digital infrastructure (79.2%) and internet connectivity (76.8%) were identified as major challenges. The study contributes to the existing evidence base on the regional level in the global discourse on AI literacy for high school teacher education and calls for the need of AI capacity building on the overall educational landscape of Sindh through policy.