Secondary school students' mental models and attitudes regarding artificial intelligence - A scoping review
Erik Marx, Thiemo Leonhardt, Nadine Bergner
Abstract
With the increasing relevance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in society, AI literacy is increasingly being integrated into K-12 education. However, students already form conceptions about modern technologies (especially AI) from their interaction with their everyday environment. In this paper, we conduct a systematic scoping review on the emerging research field of secondary school students' mental models and attitudes towards AI. Our goal is to identify research approaches and uncover research gaps. For this purpose, we searched literature (2012–2022) in the ACM, IEEE, ERIC, and Science Direct databases. In total, we were able to identify 18 relevant papers, for which we collected and evaluated research objectives, results, and open research directions. As a result, it can be seen that most of the literature examined deals with students' attitudes toward AI and moderating variables. Furthermore, initial research exists on the type of mental models students have about AI. As existing research gaps, we identify the lack of development of research instruments to survey mental models. Furthermore, we detect insufficient research on the effect of learning interventions on the construction of students' mental models.