Australian teachers are some of the highest users of AI in classrooms around the world - new survey

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

The OECD's latest Teaching and Learning International Survey also shows Australian teachers are reporting high levels of stress and not enough training to manage student behaviour.

What is this survey? And what else does it tell us about Australian teachers?

What is the survey?

The Teaching and Learning Survey (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 surveyed came from primary schools and lower secondary schools (typically up to Year 10 in Australia).

This is the fourth round of TALIS since it began in 2008 and the first since 2018.

Use of AI

Amid ongoing debate about the use of AI in education, many Australian teachers report they are using this emerging technology in their work.

About two thirds (66%) of lower secondary teachers reported using AI in the past year. This puts Australia as the fourth highest country within the OECD, and far above the OECD average of 36%.

Of Australian teachers who used AI, the most common purposes were brainstorming lesson plans and learning about and summarising content. This was happening for 71% of Australian teachers who used AI.

Australian teachers were unlikely to use AI to review data on student performance (9% of those who use AI, compared to 28% across the OECD) and to assess student work (15%, compared to 30% across the OECD).

These results suggest many Australian teachers are using AI to improve their approach to teaching. But their hesitancy to use it in certain situations suggests there is awareness of concerns around privacy (if student data is uploaded to large language models) and the need to keep using professional judgement (such as when assessing work).

Teachers' use of artificial intelligence, highest and lowest 10 countries