Enhancing pre-service teachers' reflective thinking skills through generative AI-assisted digital storytelling creation: A three-dimensional framework analysis

Developing reflective thinking skills (RTS) in pre-service teachers remains a challenge in teacher education, particularly in the context of integrating emerging technologies. While digital storytelling (DST) has shown promise in fostering reflective practice, traditional methods often present technical barriers that hinder deeper reflection. Few studies have explored how generative artificial intelligence (GAI) tools can support RTS during DST creation. This study addresses these gaps by adopting a three-dimensional framework of RTS, which included the time of reflection, objects of reflection, and levels of reflection, to guide and assess the impact of GAI-assisted DST creation on pre-service teachers' reflective patterns. Employing a post-test quasi-experimental design, eighty pre-service teachers were divided into two groups: an experimental group utilizing GAI tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Midjourney, Runway) for DST creation, and a control group utilizing traditional methods. Results revealed that the experimental group significantly improved RTS in time, objects, and levels of reflection. Pre-service teachers in the experimental group reflected more on problem definition and solution generation during the design stages of reflection time. Regarding reflection objects, the experimental group exhibited significantly higher reflection frequencies across self, artifacts, and circumstances aspects. Additionally, pre-service teachers in experimental group demonstrated significantly higher reflection frequencies at all levels—single-loop, double-loop, and triple-loop—compared to the control group. Single-loop reflection was the most common, while triple-loop reflection was the least frequent in both groups. These findings underline GAI's potential to scaffold RTS and enhance the DST creation process, offering valuable insights for integrating GAI into teacher education to foster deeper reflective practice.