Teacher–AI Collaboration and Early Literacy Skills Acquisition of Preschool Children in Public Early Childhood Education Centres in Abia State
Keywords:
Teacher–AI Collaboration, Early Literacy Skills Acquisition, Content Creation with Differentiation, Practice Partner, Phonological AwarenessAbstract
The problem of this study is that public preschools in Abia State continue to rely on traditional teaching methods, with limited use of modern instructional tools such as individualised reading instruction, practice partners, and differentiated AI-supported approaches. Consequently, there is little empirical evidence on how these methods influence preschool children’s phonological awareness and understanding of print. For these reasons, this study examined Teacher–AI Collaboration and Early Literacy Skills Acquisition among preschool children in public Early Childhood Education Centres in Abia State, Nigeria. The study focused on two dimensions of Teacher–AI Collaboration and its effect on phonological awareness and print concepts skills of preschoolers, respectively. A quasi-experimental pretest–posttest control group design was adopted for the study. The population comprised approximately 4,862 preschool children distributed across 312 registered public Early Childhood Education Centres in the state. While a sample of 120 preschool children was selected using multistage sampling techniques. Data were collected using the Early Literacy Skills Acquisition Assessment (ELSAA). The instrument was validated by experts in Early Childhood Education and Measurement and Evaluation, while a reliability coefficient of 0.82 was obtained using Cronbach's alpha statistics. Data collected were analysed using mean, standard deviation, and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA). The findings revealed that preschool children exposed to Teacher–AI Collaboration improved significantly in phonological awareness, with a mean gain of 4.29 compared to the control group with a mean gain of 1.07. Similarly, Teacher–AI Collaboration significantly enhanced print concepts with a mean gain of 4.11 compared to the control group with a mean gain of 0.97. Furthermore, Teacher–AI Collaboration significantly improved print concepts with a mean gain of 4.17 compared to the control group with a mean gain of 1.04. ANCOVA results further confirmed that all the interventions had statistically significant effects with large effect sizes. The study concluded that Teacher–AI Collaboration significantly enhances early literacy skills acquisition among preschool children. It was recommended, among others, that AI-supported instructional technologies should be integrated into public early childhood education centres to improve literacy learning outcomes.
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