Department of Property Protection and Security, Amasya University, Amasya, 05100, Türkiye
Abstract
This study examined the relationships among artificial intelligence (AI) literacy, AI acceptance, and attitudes toward AI among students enrolled in occupational health and safety (OHS) programs, as well as whether these variables differed according to various demographic characteristics. A multi-centre, cross-sectional relational survey design was adopted, and data were collected online from OHS students enrolled in associate, undergraduate, and graduate programmes at three state universities in Türkiye. Of the 253 responses initially obtained, 29 were removed after data cleaning based on a control item and straight-lining criteria, leaving a final analytic sample of N=224. The AI Literacy Scale, the short form of the AI Acceptance Scale, and the General Attitudes towards Artificial Intelligence Scale were administered. Descriptive statistics, independent-samples t tests, the Kruskal-Wallis H test, and Pearson correlation analysis were used to analyse the data. The findings indicated that scale scores did not differ significantly by gender, AI training, employment status, age, or grade point average. In contrast, scores differed significantly by frequency of AI tool use for positive acceptance (H=50.28, p<0.001, ε²=0.21) and for overall attitude (H=29.74, p<0.001, ε²=0.12); students who reported never using AI scored lower than those who did. AI literacy was positively and moderately-to-strongly associated with positive acceptance (r=0.59) and positive attitude (r=0.63). The findings suggest that the level of interaction with AI covaries with positive acceptance and attitudes. Because the design is cross-sectional, these associations cannot be interpreted causally, and the convenience sample drawn from three universities limits generalisation to OHS students more broadly.
Keywords
AI literacy,AI acceptance,AI attitude,occupational health and safety,university students
How to Cite
Yurtcu, A. (2026). Examining the relationships among artificial intelligence literacy, acceptance, and attitudes of occupational health and safety students. International Journal of Eurasia Social Sciences, 17(65), 1250–1270. https://doi.org/10.70736/ijoess.2512
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