unscaffolded GenAI

Unscaffolded GenAI use in teacher education showed no instructional-design advantage

Jun Zhang, Yuting Peng, Xinyue Deng, Qin Zeng, Kai Wang

Behavioral Sciences

A 2026 quasi-experiment with 52 pre-service chemistry teachers found no adjusted advantage from permitted but unscaffolded GenAI use in AI readiness, self-regulated learning, or critical thinking, while the no-GenAI group achieved stronger instructional-design performance.