AI-enabled special education services: the moderating role of parental involvement in home-school-community...

The implementation of inclusive education relies not only on institutional support but also on parents' attitudinal readiness and depth of involvement. Drawing on the Technology Acceptance Model and self-efficacy theory as interpretive frameworks, this study explores the moderating role of parental involvement in the relationship between AI-enabled special education services and perceived service effectiveness. A questionnaire survey was conducted among 386 parents of children with special needs, and structural equation modeling was used to analyze the moderating effect. The results show that AI empowerment is significantly and positively associated with perceived service effectiveness (β = 0.31), family learning support shows a direct positive association (β = 0.18), while the direct effect of home-school communication is not significant. Both forms of involvement significantly moderate the relationship between AI empowerment and perceived service effectiveness, increasing the effect from β = 0.17-0.19 at low involvement to β = 0.43-0.45 at high involvement. Home-school communication functions as a pure moderator, while family learning support operates as a quasi moderator with both direct and interactive effects. The findings suggest that the association between AI services and perceived effectiveness is substantially weaker in the absence of meaningful family involvement, and that special education programs may benefit from combining technology deployment with family-centered capacity building.