The Impact of Educational LLM Agent Use on Teachers’ Curriculum Content Creation: The Chain Mediating Role of School Support and Teacher Self-Efficacy
Abstract
1. Introduction
- To what extent and in what ways does the application of educational LLM agents exert a significant influence on the quality of teachers’ curriculum content creation?
- What is the mediating role and effect size of school support in the association between educational LLM agents utilization and teachers’ curriculum content creation quality?
- To what degree does teachers’ self-efficacy mediate the relationship between the use of educational LLM agents and the quality of their curriculum content creation?
- How does school support indirectly boost the quality of teachers’ curriculum content creation by improving their self-efficacy, and what is the magnitude of this chain mediation effect?
2. Literature Review
2.1. The Impact of Educational LLM Agents on Teachers’ Curriculum Content Creation
2.2. The Mediating Role of School Support
2.3. The Mediating Role of Teacher Self-Efficacy
2.4. The Chain Mediating Role of School Support and Teacher Self-Efficacy
3. The Research Hypotheses
4. Method
4.1. Participants
4.2. Instruments
4.2.1. Key Scales
Educational LLM Agent Use Scale
School Support Scale
Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale
Curriculum Content Creation Scale
4.2.2. Measurement Model
4.3. Data Analysis
5. Results
5.1. Common Method Bias Test
5.2. Descriptive Statistics and Correlation Analysis
5.3. Testing the Chain Mediation Model of School Support and Teacher Self-Efficacy
5.3.1. Regression Analyses
5.3.2. Mediation Analyses
6. Discussion
6.1. The Relationship Between Educational LLM Agent Use and Teachers’ Curriculum Content Creation
6.2. The Influence of School Support and Teacher Self-Efficacy
6.3. The Chain Mediation of School Support and Teacher Self-Efficacy
7. Limitations and Future Directions
8. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
Appendix A. Survey Instruments in the Study
- 1. Basic informationYour gender is: □ Male □ FemaleYour domicile:□ Rural □ townships □ counties □ prefecture-level cities □ provincial capitals □ municipalities directly under the Central GovernmentThe middle school grades you teach is:□ 1st □ 2nd □ 3rd grade □ Cross-grade teaching (please specify: ______)The subjects you teach is:□ Chinese □ Mathematics □ English □ Physics □ Chemistry □ Biology □ History□ Geography □ Politics (Ethics & Rule of Law) □ Music □ Fine Arts □ Physical Education□ Information Technology □ Others (please specify: ______)2. Agent tools and functional cognitionPlease hit “√” after the option that matches your situation, you can select multiple options:I understand the tool platform of the agent: □ Domestic: Baidu Wenxin Agent□ Domestic: iFLYTEK Spark Platform □ Domestic: Tencent Hunyuan Platform □ Others (please specify: ______)I understand the functions of the following agents: □ Text-to-VideoFunction □ Text-to-Document □ Answering Function □ Text-to-ImageDiagram Function □ Audio Clip Function □ Code Generation Function □ Others (Please Specify: ______)3. Attitude towards the use and operation of agent toolsThe meaning of each alternative answer is as follows (same below):5 Very true: means that this statement holds true for you in almost all cases;4 Conformity: means that under normal circumstances, this statement is consistent with you;3 Uncertainty: means that in half of the cases, this statement is consistent with you;2 Non-conformity: means that under normal circumstances, this statement is not in accordance with you;1 Very inconsistent: means that in almost all cases this statement is inconsistent with you
| Scale Problem | Degree of Conformity | ||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
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| Variable | Category | Frequency | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gender | Male | 149 | 32.1% |
| Female | 315 | 67.9% | |
| Household Registration | Rural | 350 | 75.4% |
| Urban | 114 | 24.6% | |
| Teaching Grade | Grade 7 | 215 | 46.4% |
| Grade 8 | 147 | 31.7% | |
| Grade 9 | 102 | 22.0% | |
| Teaching Subject | Science | 188 | 40.5% |
| Information Technology | 113 | 24.4% | |
| Mathematics | 163 | 35.1% |
| Model | χ2 | df | χ2/df | CFI | TLI | NFI | GFI | RMSEA | SRMR | Δχ2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baseline Model (M1) | 416.794 | 113 | 3.688 | 0.970 | 0.964 | 0.959 | 0.904 | 0.076 | 0.0234 | |
| Model 1 | 868.401 | 116 | 7.486 | 0.925 | 0.912 | 0.915 | 0.783 | 0.118 | 0.0409 | 359.606 |
| Model 2 | 570.135 | 116 | 4.915 | 0.955 | 0.947 | 0.944 | 0.866 | 0.092 | 0.0288 | 153.341 |
| Model 3 | 763.599 | 116 | 6.582 | 0.936 | 0.925 | 0.925 | 0.807 | 0.110 | 0.0349 | 346.805 |
| Model 4 | 961.679 | 118 | 8.150 | 0.916 | 0.903 | 0.906 | 0.768 | 0.124 | 0.0418 | 544.885 |
| Model 5 | 1287.207 | 119 | 10.817 | 0.884 | 0.867 | 0.874 | 0.692 | 0.146 | 0.0466 | 870.413 |
| Variable | M ± SD | 1. Educational LLM Agent Use | 2. School Support | 3. Teacher Self-Efficacy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Educational LLM Agent Use | 3.17 ± 0.814 | |||
| 2. School Support | 2.98 ± 0.825 | 0.777 ** | ||
| 3. Teacher Self-Efficacy | 3.11 ± 0.809 | 0.905 ** | 0.827 ** | |
| 4. Teachers’ Curriculum Content Creation | 3.20 ± 0.808 | 0.902 ** | 0.748 ** | 0.857 ** |
| Regression Path | Overall Fit Indices | Predictors (IVS) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Outcome Variable (DV) | Predictor Variable (IV) | R | R2 | F | β | t |
| School support | Educational LLM Agent Use | 0.777 | 0.604 | 704.445 | 0.777 | 26.541 *** |
| Teacher Self-efficacy | Educational LLM Agent Use | 0.926 | 0.858 | 1392.108 | 0.664 | 23.796 *** |
| School support | 0.311 | 11.146 *** | ||||
| Teachers’ Curriculum Content Creation | Educational LLM Agent Use | 0.908 | 0.824 | 717.136 | 0.690 | 14.856 *** |
| School support | 0.063 | 1.793 | ||||
| Teacher Self-efficacy | 0.181 | 3.481 ** | ||||
| Pathway | Indirect Effect | Bootstrap SE | 95% CI | Significance | Proportion of Effect |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Effect | 0.902 | 0.0200 | 0.8569~0.9353 | Significant | 100% |
| Direct Effect | 0.6895 | 0.0464 | 0.5983~0.7807 | Significant | 76.4% |
| Indirect Effect | 0.2125 | 0.0592 | 0.1036~0.3338 | Significant | 23.6% |
| Educational LLM Agent Use → School Support → Teachers’ Curriculum Content Creation | 0.0488 | 0.0412 | −0.0258~0.1357 | Not Significant | \ |
| Educational LLM Agent Use → Teacher Self-Efficacy → Teachers’ Curriculum Content Creation | 0.1200 | 0.0446 | 0.0364~0.2113 | Significant | 13.3% |
| Educational LLM Agent Use → School Support → Teacher Self-Efficacy → Teachers’ Curriculum Content Creation | 0.0437 | 0.0159 | 0.0146~0.0763 | Significant | 4.8% |
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Share and Cite
Xu, H.; Chen, M.; Wang, M.; Lu, J. The Impact of Educational LLM Agent Use on Teachers’ Curriculum Content Creation: The Chain Mediating Role of School Support and Teacher Self-Efficacy. Behav. Sci. 2026, 16, 124. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs16010124
Xu H, Chen M, Wang M, Lu J. The Impact of Educational LLM Agent Use on Teachers’ Curriculum Content Creation: The Chain Mediating Role of School Support and Teacher Self-Efficacy. Behavioral Sciences. 2026; 16(1):124. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs16010124
Chicago/Turabian StyleXu, Huifen, Minjing Chen, Minjuan Wang, and Jijian Lu. 2026. "The Impact of Educational LLM Agent Use on Teachers’ Curriculum Content Creation: The Chain Mediating Role of School Support and Teacher Self-Efficacy" Behavioral Sciences 16, no. 1: 124. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs16010124
APA StyleXu, H., Chen, M., Wang, M., & Lu, J. (2026). The Impact of Educational LLM Agent Use on Teachers’ Curriculum Content Creation: The Chain Mediating Role of School Support and Teacher Self-Efficacy. Behavioral Sciences, 16(1), 124. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs16010124

