Australian teachers are some of the highest users of AI in classrooms around the world, survey reveals

Australian teachers are more likely to use artificial intelligence than their counterparts around the world, according to a new international survey.

The latest international survey on OECD teaching and learning also shows that Australian teachers report high levels of stress and not enough training to manage students’ behavior.

What is this survey? And what else is he telling us about Australian teachers?

The investigation into teaching and learning (also known as “talis”) is a large -scale survey of 280,000 teachers in 55 education systems around the world, including Australia.

Most of the teachers interviewed came from primary schools and lower secondary schools (generally up to the 10th year in Australia).

This is the fourth round of Talis since its start in 2008 and the first since 2018.

Use of AI

In the middle of the current debate on the use of AI in education, many Australian teachers report that they use this emerging technology in their work.

About two thirds (66%) of lower secondary teachers said they used AI in the past year. This puts Australia as the fourth highest country in the OECD, and well above the OECD average of 36%.

Among the Australian teachers who used AI, the most common objectives were to think about the course plans and learn and summarize the content. This occurred for 71% of Australian teachers who used AI.

Australian teachers were unlikely to use AI to examine data on students ‘performance (9% of those who use AI, against 28% throughout the OECD) and to assess students’ work (15%, against 30% throughout the OECD).

These results suggest that many Australian teachers use AI to improve their approach to teaching. But their hesitation in using it in certain situations suggests that there are concerns about confidentiality (if students’ data is downloaded from major language models) and the need to continue to use a professional judgment (as when evaluating work).

Teacher stress

In Australia, these survey results also arrive at a time of continuous concerns concerning shortages, professional exhaustion and dissatisfaction.

The results show a marked increase in stress reported among Australian teachers, who reported the third highest levels of stress among all OECD countries, against a 15th classification in 2018.

Among the lower secondary teachers, Australia has ranked the highest among all the countries where teachers said they had stress frequently at work (34% in Australia, against 19% throughout the OECD).

The main sources of stress were “too much administrative work”, “too much marking” and “follow program changes”.

These results have supported research showing a radical decrease in the professional satisfaction of Australian teachers since 2015, especially in the first ten years of their career.

Teacher training

In recent years, Australian decision -makers have become more and more focused on teacher training programs – university degrees that form teachers for the class. Following a 2023 report, teacher training programs are necessary to include subjects such as brain and learning, teaching methods and class management.

Australian Teachers in the Talis Survey appeared, on the whole, satisfied with their university studies. Some 70% of respondents said that overall, the quality of their teacher training was high, tied with 75% of OECD teachers.

Although Australian teachers say that their training provided sufficient knowledge on the curriculum, they were less positive on preparing for management of behavior in class.

According to my analysis of survey data, around 50% of Australian teachers were positive about their behavior training, compared to 63% throughout the OECD. This corresponds to the media relationships of teachers struggling with poor behavior of students in their classrooms.

What now?

This survey provides high quality data to understand our education system at a time of rapid change.

This suggests that Australian teachers are world leaders in their use of AI. However, a lot of work must be done to improve the well-being of teachers at work.

Supporting the teaching profession and the quality of teachers’ work is a key national priority. A more meticulous analysis of these results can help guide this work.

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