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Determinants affecting teachers’ adoption of AI-based applications in EFL context: An analysis of analytic hierarchy process

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Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been exerting a revolutionary and profound impact on the teaching of English as Foreign Language (EFL) for decades. In spite of these acknowledged advances, teachers have numerous reservations and objections against the adoption of AI-based applications. In order to facilitate the proper use and produce an instrument in AI-based applications selection for EFL teachers, this study attempts to identify and assess factors affecting teachers’ adoption based on technology acceptance theories. The present study proposed a multi-criteria decision-making model under the framework of the VAM, which comprises four main factors and ten sub-factors adopted from prior studies. After collecting opinion data from 17 experts, the Analysis of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was employed to weight and prioritize these factors. The results found effectiveness, efficiency and complexity were the most influential elements encouraging teachers to use AI-based applications in EFL. Perceived fees and rewards were of less concern. Perceived time, flexibility and pleasure were identified as of intermediate importance in the adoption. Together with these factor weights, the article provides insights into teachers’ experiences of AI application adoption processes.

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Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to all of the experts who have deeply participated into the study, and express gratitude to reviewers whose insightful comments and suggestions have significantly helped to improve the quality of the paper.

Funding

This work was funded by the [Chongqing Federation of Social Science Circles] under grant number of [2019WYZX01], and [Chongqing Municipal Education Commission] under grant number of [20SKGH178].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Foreign Language, Chongqing University of Technology, Chongqing, China

    Yunfei Du

  2. School of Mechanical Engineering, Chongqing University of Technology, Chongqing, China

    Han Gao

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  1. Yunfei Du
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  2. Han Gao
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As for the authors contribution, all authors contributed extensively to the work presented in this paper and approved the final manuscript. D.Y.F contributed to the study design, conceptual model construction, and quantitative data interpretation. H.G calculated the weight of factors in the framework.

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Correspondence to Yunfei Du.

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I would like to declare on behalf of my co-author that we have no competing interests, the work described was original research that has not been published previously, and not under consideration for publication elsewhere, in whole or in part.

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Appendices

Appendix 1

1.1 Questionnaire for pair-wise comparisons

figure afigure a

Appendix 2

2.1 Saaty’s nine-point scale of relative importance

Table 8 Scale of relative importance
Full size table

Appendix 3

3.1 Open-ended questions to gain insights into teachers’ adoption

  • 1. What AI-based applications do you always use in EFL teaching?

  • 2. How do you use these applications?

  • 3. After adopting AI-based applications into EFL context, what are the changes of your teaching?

  • 4. What challenges do you encounter in adopting AI-based applications into EFL context? How do you solve these challenges?

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Du, Y., Gao, H. Determinants affecting teachers’ adoption of AI-based applications in EFL context: An analysis of analytic hierarchy process. Educ Inf Technol 27, 9357–9384 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-022-11001-y

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