Abstract

The integration and regulation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) represents a global challenge. Therefore, this research sought to identify the attitude and perception of university education students towards the use of AI. The method was applied in a quantitative approach with a basic, cross-sectional descriptive design. A representative sample of 124 university students from the Faculty of Education was chosen (bachelor’s degrees in early childhood education, primary education, mathematics, secondary language, and literature - Salomé Ureña Higher Teacher Training Institute, Dominican Republic). An ad hoc instrument with 21 multiple selection items, divided into 6 dimensions, was applied to this sample. The reliability level of the instrument is .780 on the Cronbach's Alpha scale, which is considered high. The main results show that students without teacher guidance have AI as a study and text generation resource, and they also see AI as an ally for their learning process. Likewise, they understand that teachers' openness is low for the integration and acceptance of AI. It is concluded that the integration of AI is very frequent in the teacher training of these students. AI implies a challenge for teachers, because they need to have more training and openness in this sense, and the university must design plans and projects for the integration and training of students in the use of AI.

Keywords:  artificial intelligence; computer application; information technology; teacher training; digital education