human-readiness
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- PaperEdArXiv (OSF Preprints)17 Jul 2026
Introducing Human Readiness for AI in Education: A New Theoretical Framework for School Transformation
Dr NIRMALA KRISHNAN
This paper introduces the Human Readiness for AI in Education framework, which argues that the success of AI implementation in schools depends more on the readiness of people (shared purpose, professional capability, relational trust, collective judgement, adaptive growth) than on the technology itself. Synthesizing organizational readiness theory, technology-acceptance research, and sociotechnical systems, the framework positions human readiness as a multidimensional organizational capacity that determines whether AI amplifies or degrades educational practice. The paper presents core propositions, boundary conditions, and a research agenda for testing the construct.
Original abstract
Three decades of large-scale technology investment in schools from one-to-one laptop programmes to interactive whiteboards to, most recently, artificial intelligence (AI) has produced a consistent pattern: substantial capital expenditure paired with modest, uneven, or absent instructional change. Prevailing accounts of this pattern locate the explanation in the technology itself its cost, its usability, its alignment with curriculum and prescribe better tools, more training, or clearer policy as the remedy. This paper argues that the explanation lies elsewhere. Synthesizing organizational readiness theory, technology-acceptance research, and the sociotechnical-systems tradition with an emerging body of evidence on AI adoption in K–12 settings, the paper introduces Human Readiness for AI in Education as a conceptual framework in which the decisive variable in AI-implementation outcomes is not the technology adopted but the readiness of the people asked to adopt it. Human readiness is proposed as a multidimensional organizational capacity spanning shared purpose, professional capability, relational trust, collective judgement, and adaptive growth that determines whether a given technology amplifies or degrades educational practice. The paper positions this construct against established adoption theories, states its core propositions and boundary conditions, and specifies the evidence that would validate or falsify it. It closes with a research agenda through which the construct can be tested. Consistent with the norms of theory-building scholarship, this paper offers a conceptual foundation, not a validated instrument or an implementation methodology. Keywords: human readiness; artificial intelligence in education; technology adoption; educational leadership; organisational readiness for change; school transformation
- PaperEdArXiv (OSF Preprints)17 Jul 2026
Human Readiness as the Missing Variable in AI Adoption in Education
Dr NIRMALA KRISHNAN
This paper positions the construct 'Human Readiness for AI in Education' against seven established technology-adoption and organizational-change models, arguing it is a distinct organization-level construct spanning five dimensions. It specifies the discriminant-validity tests the construct must pass to avoid being deemed redundant, emphasizing the need for empirical validation.
Original abstract
A theoretical contribution to organizational scholarship requires more than the introduction of a new label for a familiar phenomenon; it requires showing what factors an existing account omits, how those factors relate to one another, and why the resulting explanation improves on what came before (Whetten, 1989). This paper undertakes that task for Human Readiness for AI in Education, a construct introduced in a companion paper (Krishnan, 2026a) as the primary determinant of whether artificial intelligence (AI) implementation benefits a school. Rather than introducing new theory, this paper positions Human Readiness systematically against seven established accounts of technology adoption and organizational change the Technology Acceptance Model, the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology, Diffusion of Innovations theory, Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge, the Substitution-Augmentation-Modification-Redefinition model, the Concerns-Based Adoption Model, and Weiner's theory of organizational readiness for change comparing each on level of analysis, outcome variable, core constructs, and explanatory scope. It argues that Human Readiness is not a relabeling of any single existing construct, but a candidate organization-level construct whose five proposed dimensions span territory these accounts divide across separate literatures. Because the value of that claim rests entirely on demonstrating that Human Readiness is empirically distinct from its nearest neighbors, the paper closes by specifying, using established construct-validation methodology (Cronbach & Meehl, 1955; Campbell & Fiske, 1959; Fornell & Larcker, 1981; MacKenzie, Podsakoff, & Podsakoff, 2011), the discriminant-validity tests the construct must pass and the outcome under which it should be judged redundant and retired. Keywords: human readiness; construct validity; technology acceptance; organizational readiness for change; discriminant validity; theory development