Generative AI in Education: Assessing Impact, Adoption, and Perception Among Polish Educators

This study investigates applications of GenAI, in the field of education with a focus on its impact on teachers in Poland. GenAI, a technology famous for its ability to create completely original content and the enhancements of existing materials in numerous media formats has become widespread in recent years and started to change the approach in different fields including education. This relatively new technology has a great potential to increase productivity for teachers who encounter challenges like limited resources for extensive lesson planning on a daily basis as it enables them to generate a wide range of teaching materials. However, teachers' attitudes towards AI are diverse. Some teachers are fond of it, while many others are hesitant towards GenAI. It is not uncommon to encounter teachers being against its usage, expressing concerns that relying on AI might restrict creativity among both teachers and students. These perceptions might emerge due to misconceptions such as not having comprehensive knowledge of the content generation process with the GenAI, mistakenly perceiving tools like ChatGPT as search engines and failing to recognize their potential, or utilizing modified versions of original AI models or tools that are labeled as AI but in reality has nothing to do with rather than original models which can influence their perception of its effectiveness in education for better or worse. The objective of this study is to investigate how frequently and why Polish educators use (or refuse to use) AI tools. It aims to explore the level of awareness among these educators regarding AI and explore the underlying reasons behind their acceptance or rejection of the tools. An essential aspect of this thesis involves determining the proportion of educators who utilize AI.