Mustafa Şat
The rapid integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in education has transformed teacher education programs. This study examined the effects of incorporating AI tools into a Project Preparation in Education course for pre-service teachers, focusing on individual innovativeness, AI anxiety, AI attitudes, and AI acceptance. Using a single-group pre-test and post-test design, validated scales were administered to 34 pre-service teachers before and after the intervention. Paired-samples t-tests with Holm–Bonferroni corrections revealed significant improvements in AI attitudes (gₐv = 0.64) and AI acceptance (gₐv = 0.70). Individual innovativeness increased slightly, primarily in opinion leadership subdimension (gₐv = 0.35), whereas AI anxiety showed no significant change (gₐv ≈ 0.05). These medium-to-large gains. underscore the potential of guided and AI-supported instruction to enhance teachers’ readiness for AI integration across the stages of the academic writing process. However, the absence of a control group limits causal inference, and the results should be interpreted as correlational evidence of change. Overall, the study highlights both the promise and boundaries of short-term AI interventions in teacher education, offering implications for curriculum design and professional development in AI-driven learning environments.