AI-Enhanced Teaching and Student Creative Thinking: Evidence from Middle School Classrooms

There has been an increase in global investment in the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into K-12 education. However, there is no empirical evidence of the relationship between teachers’ domain-specific AI practices and student creative thinking outcomes (particularly in non-Western contexts). This study seeks to address this gap by providing the first known empirical, multi-dimensional, correlational evidence demonstrating links between the way 8th-grade teachers use AI in their practice and students’ creative thinking in Abu Dhabi, UAE. This study uses the SAMR model and the Componential Theory of Creativity to provide a descriptive–correlational research design using a purposive (30) sample of 8th-grade teachers and a random (150) sample of students from their classes. Two newly developed and validated measurement instruments (the Teachers’ AI Application Use Questionnaire and the Students’ Creative Thinking Questionnaire) were used to conduct the analysis of the data collected. The findings from the analysis provide four main novel contributions to the body of research. First, the results demonstrate a positive correlation between teachers’ overall use of AI and the students’ creative thinking. Second, within the model used, delivery and assessment-and-feedback were the only two domains that were statistically significant predictors in the regression analysis, which has not been previously established. Third, data from students indicated that although there were significant fluency and flexibility scores, they also had a significant deficit in originality, providing an important theoretical gap in the body of research; and fourth, the ACIC (AI–Creativity Integration Continuum) was developed and empirically validated through this study. The ACIC proposes three conceptual pathways (cognitive offloading, generative scaffolding, and reflective amplification) through which teachers’ AI integration may be associated with students’ creative thinking development.