Psychological Mechanisms of Generative AI Discontinuance Intention among Chinese K-12 Teachers

TL;DR

This study explores psychological factors influencing Chinese K-12 teachers' intention to discontinue using generative AI, highlighting the roles of AI anxiety, satisfaction, and technological perceptions.

Contribution

It applies the Cognition-Affect-Conation framework with structural equation modeling and fuzzy-set analysis to identify pathways affecting discontinuance intention.

Findings

AI anxiety increases discontinuance intention due to privacy, opacity, and hallucination concerns.

Perceived intelligence, personalization, and interactivity reduce discontinuance by boosting satisfaction.

Multiple pathways to high discontinuance involve technological risks, low satisfaction, and weak affordances.

Abstract

This study examines the psychological mechanisms underlying Chinese K-12 teachers' discontinuance intention toward generative AI. Drawing on the Cognition-Affect-Conation framework, the study investigates how cognitive evaluations of generative AI shape affective responses and subsequently influence behavioural intention. Survey data from 256 Chinese K-12 teachers were analysed using structural equation modelling and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. The results showed that privacy concern, algorithmic opacity, and information hallucination increased AI anxiety, which in turn strengthened discontinuance intention. Conversely, perceived intelligence, perceived personalisation, and perceived interactivity enhanced satisfaction, which reduced discontinuance intention. The configurational analysis further identified multiple pathways leading to high discontinuance intention, highlighting the combined roles of technological risks, AI anxiety, weak affordance perceptions, and low satisfaction. These findings extend research on post-adoption generative AI use in education and suggest that sustainable integration requires both reducing technological uncertainty and enhancing teachers' positive user experiences.