Pedagogical considerations in the automation era: A systematic literature review of AIEd in K-12 authentic settings

The introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) into education holds promise for supporting and augmenting teaching and learning-related activities. Yet, despite its potential, there is limited empirical research on the use of AI in K-12 settings exploring the pedagogical grounding, impact and implications of the technological solutions. The current paper reports a systematic literature review of 28 papers that addresses the topic of AI technologies in authentic settings. We applied etic and emic content analysis to the collected data. Our results indicated that most AI research is conducted in China and the United States, and investigates AI solutions for primary education. As main AI technologies we found social robots, augmented reality and intelligent systems. The review also revealed that half of the papers lack a solid pedagogical foundation and a contextualisation under concrete course conditions. Finally, most AI solutions focus mainly on learning outcomes without exploring the teacher needs and impressions. Our findings suggest the need for research to focus on: (a) AIEd localisation to fit the AI context of different regions; (b) contextualisation of the tool design under several course conditions and learning theories; (c) equal attention on teacher agency and autonomy within the AIEd era; and (d) systematisation of the evaluation of sustained pedagogical effects (e.g., cognitive, relational, affective effects) apart from student learning outcomes. We envision that our research can support the design, development and deployment of AI tools in K-12 under such pedagogical considerations, hence contributing to strengthen the ties between pedagogy and AI practices in authentic settings.