Integrating Artificial Intelligence into Pre-service Physical Education Teacher Education: Practical Challenges, Underlying Mechanisms, and Implementation Strategies

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into pre-service physical education (PE) teacher education responds to the need for a shift in talent development in the AI era and is a key measure for cultivating a high-quality, professional corps of PE teachers. Research suggests that efforts to integrate AI into pre-service PE teacher education face practical challenges stemming from outdated professional education philosophies, which hinder innovation in the paradigm of physical education talent development; an imbalanced professional curriculum system, which hinders the transformation of pre-service PE teachers; and inadequate digital literacy among both teachers and students, which makes it difficult for them to to adapt to AI-integrated professional training. Its underlying mechanisms highlight the innovations in talent development philosophy, the transformation of professional training models, the optimization of professional competency structures, and the improvement of professional learning methods driven by AI. To transform technological advantages into substantive momentum for talent cultivation, future efforts should focus on revising professional training objectives to cultivate physical education professionals equipped for the AI era, restructuring the curriculum system to develop AI-integrated physical education courses; strengthening the teaching workforce by recruiting full-time PE teachers with sound AI literacy, enriching practical training to improve AI application competence and digital literacy, and modifying the admission system to define professional criteria for PE teachers in the intelligent age.