Abstract:

Pre-service teachers must develop the necessary knowledge and skills to teach effectively, particularly given the complexities of the profession and the challenges they encounter during their induction phase. Multimedia representation in the form of digital portrayal as an assessment as learning tool supports students in cultivating a deeper awareness of their emerging professional identities upon graduation. With the increasing role of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in content creation, new opportunities arise for its integration into teacher education. GenAI can enhance students' engagement with metaphorical thinking, enabling them to conceptualise and articulate their professional roles more creatively. This study explores the experiences of 26 final-year students with GenAI while creating a multimedia representation of themselves as teacher-researchers. Students received an online introduction to GenAI in a blended course, and a workshop followed. At the course's end, students completed an online survey indicating whether they used GenAI for their final presentations and reflections on benefits and challenges. A qualitative and quantitative analysis of the answers to this survey was conducted to understand students' behaviours towards and the perception of GenAI regarding teacher-researcher multimedia representation. This study found that 73% of students did not use GenAI for their multimedia presentations, mainly due to personal preferences, lack of knowledge, or trust in traditional tools. They valued originality and manual creation, often relying on familiar tools instead of experimenting with GenAI. Only 27% used GenAI, driven by curiosity or practical advantages. The key benefits noted were ease of use, support for creativity, and improved digital literacy. The study highlights the varying levels of engagement with GenAI in creating multimedia representations among pre-service teachers. It underscores the need for structured opportunities to develop competence and explore GenAI critically and practically, helping pre-service teachers to responsibly choose if, when and how to use it to reflect on being teacher-researchers. Future research should examine whether GenAI can help students reflect on their role as teacher-researchers while creating multimedia representations and finding possible strategies to support them in developing GenAI literacy. This could enable them to critically explore GenAI tools for personal reflection, simultaneously maximising learning and awareness.

Keywords:

GenAI, Teacher-researcher, Higher Education, Assessment as Learning, Educational Technologies.