Teacher charisma and AI-mediated education: Effects on EFL learners' attitudes and self-efficacy

Although Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being rapidly incorporated into the education sector, a glaring gap remains in understanding how AI-mediated education (AME) interacts with vital human components, including teacher influence, in shaping learners' key psychological variables. Grounded in Social Cognitive and Charismatic Leadership Theories, this study investigates how teacher charisma and AI shape the attitudes and self-efficacy (SE) of 322 EFL nursing students in Saudi Arabia. We analyzed data from validated scales using PLS-SEM. The findings verified a strong model of measurement and offered evidence in support of all seven hypotheses that were suggested. The results indicate that teacher charisma and AI-mediated learning predict learner attitudes and self-efficacy with significant and positive effects, but AI has a relatively higher impact compared to teacher charisma. Moreover, attitudes proved to be the strongest direct predictor of self-efficacy and were shown to mediate the connection between the independent variables and self-efficacy significantly. The research model demonstrated high explanatory capability, as it explained a significant percentage of the variation in self-efficacy (R2 = 0.827). The results of this study highlight the synergy of human-empathetic instruction methods and AI educational applications. The research offers pedagogical insights to help teachers and administrators maximize the possibilities of blended learning settings. It demonstrates how AI implementation alongside teacher control can promote positive attitudes among EFL learners and improve their academic confidence.