Technology is involved in every aspect of our lives today, and education and training is one of the areas where technology is used effectively and widely. It can be said that knowing what a generation born as digital natives think about technology and how they use it is important for both teachers and students in terms of serving lifelong learning. When current research and trends in the field of special education are examined, it is seen that studies using artificial intelligence technology, which is among technology-supported teaching and applications, have been carried out. It is thought that knowing the opinions and experiences of pre-service special education teachers about artificial intelligence technology will play an important role in shaping the teaching methods courses and the content of these courses in special education teaching programs, especially in technology-supported teaching and applications, in the creation of artificial intelligence-based special education activities and materials, and the measurement and evaluation of the training carried out. In addition, the findings expected to be obtained will contribute to the integration of artificial intelligence technology into inclusive education curricula in the digital transformation process. The aim of this study is to determine the views and experiences of pre-service special education teachers about artificial intelligence technology.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 pre-service special education teachers in Turkey for this research, which was designed according to the phenomenological design within the scope of the qualitative research approach. The data obtained from the interviews were analyzed thematically. Eight themes were obtained as a result of the analysis. The pre-service teachers expressed both positive and negative opinions about artificial intelligence technology. They also emphasized artificial intelligence literacy even if they use artificial intelligence technology for their professional development. The pre-service teachers stated that they were able to evaluate some ethical and security dimensions of the use of artificial intelligence applications in the educational processes of students with special needs, and they were able to reveal the potential usage areas of AI applications for different areas such as diagnosis, evaluation, education and material preparation for students with special needs. In addition, pre-service teachers reported their views on strategic and political goals.

These findings reveal that artificial intelligence literacy should be increased in special education teacher education programmes and content should be developed to enable pre-service teachers to use this technology in a conscious, critical and ethical framework. In addition, increasing pre-service teachers' awareness of the political and strategic dimensions of artificial intelligence will be an important step to make digital transformation in special education more inclusive in the future. In this direction, it is necessary to integrate artificial intelligence-supported teaching practices into education programmes and support teachers in this process. Future studies should focus on developing training models to increase the level of artificial intelligence literacy of pre-service teachers and evaluating the effectiveness of these models.

Keywords: Artificial intelligence, special education, pre-service teachers, phenomenology.