The effect of STEM themed story writing training with artificial intelligence tools on the digital literacy and 21 st century skills of preservice teachers

Abstract This study aims to reveal the effect of artificial intelligence (AI) tools and STEM-themed story writing training on preservice Turkish teachers’ digital literacy (DL) levels and 21st century skills (21.cS). A control group experimental design was used in the study. The sample of the study consisted of 36 (17 control, 19 experimental) preservice Turkish teachers. The data collection process lasted eight weeks. First of all, experimental and control groups were randomly selected and pre-tests (DL scale and 21.cS scale) were applied. During the application process, the preservice teachers in the control group produced the stories themselves without using any tools. The preservice teachers in the experimental group created their stories using AI tools. Each group was asked to create their stories according to the themes of “space and the universe”, “renewable energy sources”, “sustainable agriculture” and “environmental pollution” respectively. The stories were evaluated in terms of textuality criteria (cohesion, coherence, purposefulness, acceptability, informativeness, situationality, and intertextuality). At the end of eight weeks, post-tests were administered. As a result of the research, no significant difference was found between the pre-test and post-test DL scores of the preservice teachers in the experimental and control groups. While there was no significant difference between the pre-test and post-test 21.cS scores of the control group, a significant difference was found in favor of the post-test in the experimental group. In addition, there was no significant difference between the DL (F(1, 32) = 0.541, p =.468) and 21.cS (F(1, 32) = 0.002, p =.966) scale scores of the experimental and control groups. The research is limited in terms of generalizability due to the limited sample size and the fact that it was conducted only with Turkish teacher candidates. However, it offers original contributions to the field as one of the pioneering studies that experimentally examines the effects of AI tools on 21.cS in STEM-themed story writing. The findings show that AI tools can be functional in the development of these skills and it is recommended that they be tested in different disciplines, age groups and cultural contexts.