FROM AI LITERACY TO PEDAGOGICAL JUDGMENT: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF TEACHERS’ COMPETENCE IN GENERATIVE AI INTEGRATION

Abstract

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is increasingly embedded in teaching, assessment, curriculum design, and teachers’ professional practice. However, effective integration requires more than technical proficiency or general AI literacy. This review examines teachers’ competence in GenAI integration through the lens of pedagogical judgment and synthesizes international scholarship, emerging competence frameworks, and evidence from the Chinese educational context. The literature indicates that teachers’ GenAI competence is best understood as a multidimensional, context-sensitive professional capacity: teachers must mobilize and integrate AI literacy, technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK), disciplinary expertise, ethical understanding, assessment knowledge, and contextual knowledge in authentic teaching situations. Competent practice involves selecting and using GenAI purposefully; critically evaluating and adapting generated content; appropriately allocating roles among teachers, students, and AI; exercising ethical responsibility; and reflectively monitoring outcomes. On this basis, the review proposes a framework contextualized for China comprising five interrelated domains: purpose judgment, content and evidence judgment, pedagogical design judgment, ethical and responsibility judgment, and consequence and reflective judgment. These domains operate through a dynamic process of interpreting context, evaluating alternatives, making and enacting decisions, monitoring outcomes, and revising practice based on reflection. Pedagogical judgment is also institutionally embedded: educational leadership, professional development, assessment policy, data governance, technological infrastructure, collaborative culture, and resource equity shape teachers’ capacity for responsible GenAI integration. The framework provides a conceptual foundation for future empirical validation, teacher development, and educational governance.