AI-assisted history education in China: a secondary evidence map of psychological antecedents and learning outcomes.

INTRODUCTION

Evidence on the use of artificial intelligence in Chinese history education remains fragmented. This study mapped the available secondary evidence and contextualized it with targeted corroboration of history-specific studies.

METHODS

We analyzed a public bibliographic export of 1,063 records current to 1 April 2024 and conducted targeted full-text corroboration to identify history-education evidence beyond the original repository. After sequential screening, 30 records were retained for the contextual map. An expanded synonym audit was also performed to assess whether any direct history-education studies were missed.

RESULTS

Nine records explicitly identified mainland China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan as the study setting, including five primary empirical studies. The synonym audit did not identify a direct history-education study in the repository. Targeted corroboration identified one 2025 mainland-China study of AI-assisted secondary-school history teaching, two systematic reviews describing broader history-education literature, and one adjacent cultural-heritage education study. In the regional subset, emotion/anxiety/cognitive-load outcomes were reported in five records, engagement in four, motivation and self-efficacy in three each, skills/competence in six, and knowledge and performance in five each.

DISCUSSION: The repository should be interpreted as a contextual map of secondary evidence rather than a comprehensive estimate of the field. Overall, the evidence suggests emerging but still limited and heterogeneous attention to AI in Chinese history education.