The present study examines pre-service teachers’ awareness of AI ethics in educational contexts, focusing on differences by major, gender, age, and prior experience using AI.
A total of 283 pre-service teachers from universities and graduate schools of education in the Seoul–Gyeonggi area participated in online and paper-based surveys. Based on major international and national AI ethics frameworks, the survey measured five factors— human-centeredness, fairness, transparency, safety, and accountability—using 24 items.
Descriptive statistics, repeated-measures ANOVA, independent-samples t-tests, and oneway ANOVAs were conducted. Overall, AI ethics awareness was moderate (M = 3.18, SD = 0.55), with the highest ratings for human-centeredness (M = 3.81) and the lowest for safety (M = 2.81). Male respondents reported significantly higher awareness than females in fairness, transparency, safety, and accountability, whereas no gender difference was found in human-centeredness. Age differences were most evident in fairness and transparency, with participants in their twenties scoring higher than older groups. Language-education majors demonstrated higher awareness across all factors than natural-science education and non-teaching majors. No significant differences were found based on experience with AI use or related coursework. These findings suggest the need for explicit and structured AI ethics and safety education in teacher training programs.