Empowering or disempowering learning through AI? empirical evidence from practice-based learning projects

• In Event: Leading schools into the AI future: ethical dilemmas, practical challenges, and leadership strategies

Proposal

Recent curriculum reforms in China call for a shift towards practice-based, inquiry-driven, and technologically mediated learning. The Compulsory Education Curriculum Plan (2022) emphasizes integrating curriculum with real-world tasks and advocates learning “through doing, using, and creating” (MOE, 2022)—especially in response to emerging technologies. Within this agenda, practice-based learning (PBL) has become a key to fostering student agency, creativity, and real-world competence.

The study is informed by two primary theoretical lenses. Sociomaterial theory foregrounds the entanglement of social actors, technological artifacts, and discursive norms in shaping learning processes and educational ecologies (Fenwick & Edwards, 2010; Haider & Sundin,2024; Johri, A, 2022; Valasmo etc. 2023). Critical posthumanism theory (Snaza & Weaver, 2015; Braidotti, 2019; Bayne, 2018) is applied reflexively in the discussion to interrogate assumptions of AI-driven empowerment and to surface ethical and epistemological tensions embedded in human–machine relations in education.

This mixed-methods study investigates how artificial intelligence (AI) technologies empower or disempower students’ PBL within AI-supported environments in Chinese primary and secondary schools. It focuses on students’ creative agency—their capacity to generate ideas, solve problems, and produce meaningful outcomes—while also examining broader dimensions of learning such as engagement, autonomy, and collaboration. Two research questions guide this study: (1) How do students perceive the effects of AI on their creative agency and participation in AI-supported PBL environments? (2) How do teachers interpret the impact of AI on students’ creative agency and learning engagement?

The study is conducted in a nationally designated curriculum reform pilot district in a developed city in eastern China. It examines 20 AI-supported PBL projects implemented across 20 primary and secondary schools. Adopting an embedded multiple case study design, the study draws on quantitative data from surveys of over 800 students who participated in these projects and qualitative data from five focus group interviews with 20 lead teachers of the selected PBL projects. The Survey investigates the students’ perceptions of AI’s role in facilitating creative learning processes and related dimensions of engagement, autonomy, and collaboration. To ensure validity, the instrument was pilot-tested and refined through expert consultation. The interviews explore teachers’ observations on students’ participation and the pedagogical affordances and constraints of AI tools in PBL.

Quantitative data are analyzed using SPSS. Descriptive statistics reveal overall trends, while t-tests and one-way ANOVA examine subgroup differences. Pearson correlation analysis explores relationships among key variables, including AI support, creative agency, and student engagement. Qualitative data are transcribed and thematically coded to identify patterns in teachers’ experiences with AI integration in PBL. The findings are triangulated to develop a comprehensive understanding of AI’s role in shaping student learning and creative agency.

By foregrounding students’ lived experiences and perceptions, and triangulating them with teachers’ pedagogical interpretations, this study offers empirical insights into how AI technologies empower or constrain students’ creative and participatory learning. The findings contribute to global discourse on AI in education by illuminating the pedagogical and institutional conditions that mediate student agency, and by informing design implications for fostering more equitable, creativity-oriented learning environments.

Authors

• Xuyang Qian, Hangzhou Normal University

• Zhenyu Gao, Hangzhou Normal University

• Huiqing Fang, Hangzhou Xihu District Education Development Research Institute