LEVERAGING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TO REVITALIZE BUSINESS TEACHER EDUCATION IN COLLEGES OF EDUCATION IN ENUGU STATE

The study determined how to leverage artificial intelligence to revitalize business teacher education programme in colleges of education in Enugu State. Three specific purposes and corresponding research questions guided the study. The researchers adopted a descriptive survey research design for this study. The population for the study consisted of all 61 business educators from public colleges of education in Enugu State. The instrument for data collection was a four-point rating scale questionnaire developed by the researchers and titled “leveraging artificial intelligence to revitalize business teacher education (LAIRTE)”. The instrument contained 19 items in three clusters based on the three research questions with strongly agree (SA), agree (A) disagree (D) strongly disagree (SD). Three experts in the school of business education in Enugu State College of Education (Technical), Enugu validated the instrument. The reliability of the instrument was determined using Cronbach Alpha method which yielded reliability coefficient values of 0.82, 0.81 and 0.80 for clusters 1 to 3 respectively with an overall reliability index of 0.81 which indicated that the instrument was reliable. Mean statistics was used to answer the research questions and decision was based on the cluster mean score in relation to a cut of mean score of 2.50. The findings of the study revealed among others that the integration of AI and AI-driven instruction in the business teacher education programme can improve students’ engagement, understanding and retention of business-related concepts while resistance to change among lecturers and administrators is a significant challenge in AI adoption. Based on these findings, the researchers concluded that AI could be leveraged to revitalize business education in colleges of education in Enugu state. It was recommended among others that the management of the institutions should organize continuous professional development programmes to enhance lecturers' proficiency in using AI resources while government should provide advanced technological tools and uninterrupted power supply to enable lecturers to effectively utilize the resources to enhance the quality of the graduates.