Survey links AI literacy to vocational students’ employment anxiety

AI literacy was associated with greater employment anxiety among 1,234 students surveyed at five industry-featured higher vocational colleges in Jiangxi Province, China, according to a cross-sectional study. The survey analysis found a positive direct association between AI literacy and employment anxiety, while also identifying significant negative indirect associations through career planning, future time perspective and a chain involving both variables. Because the research was based on self-reported measures from one survey, the results do not establish that AI literacy causes anxiety or that career planning reduces it.

Researchers used self-report scales to measure AI literacy, employment anxiety, career planning and future time perspective. They then tested the relationships among the four variables with Model 6 of the PROCESS macro for SPSS, which was used to examine the direct association and the specified indirect pathways. All four variables were significantly correlated with one another. The analysis separated AI literacy’s total association with employment anxiety from its direct and indirect components, allowing the different modeled routes to be considered simultaneously.

The model indicated that AI literacy had a significant positive direct association with employment anxiety and a significant positive total association. Its total indirect association, however, was negative. Three significant indirect routes connected AI literacy with lower employment anxiety: one through career planning, one through future time perspective and one chain pathway involving both variables. The authors suggested that greater AI literacy may increase students’ awareness of labor-market disruption, while the indirect associations may reflect stronger career planning and future orientation. These interpretations are consistent with the modeled associations, but the survey cannot determine their causal direction.

The supplied study abstract does not report the sequence of variables within the chain pathway, numerical effect sizes, confidence intervals or model-fit statistics. It therefore does not support a claim that one mediator was more influential than the others or that a particular sequence drove the overall result. The findings also come from five industry-featured higher vocational colleges in a single Chinese province, limiting generalization to other institutions, regions, educational systems or labor markets. As a cross-sectional, self-report study, the research is also unable to show whether anxiety influences students’ reports of AI literacy or planning, or whether changes in either factor would lead to changes in anxiety.

Despite those limitations, the study offers a detailed account of how AI literacy may relate to employment anxiety rather than through a single pathway. Its results distinguish a direct positive association from negative indirect associations associated with career planning and future time perspective, while retaining a positive total association when the modeled routes are combined. The authors recommend that higher vocational colleges consider integrating AI literacy education with career guidance, career-planning competencies and long-term future orientation. This is presented as a potential way to strengthen an anxiety-buffering pathway, but the survey did not test an educational intervention and therefore does not demonstrate that such programs would reduce employment anxiety.

Subject of Research: Relationships among AI literacy, career planning, future time perspective and employment anxiety among vocational college students

Article Title: The chain mediating roles of career planning and future time perspective between AI literacy and employment anxiety among higher vocational college students

Article References: Xiong, Y., Yu, J., & Wu, H. (2026). The chain mediating roles of career planning and future time perspective between AI literacy and employment anxiety among higher vocational college students. Scientific Reports, 16(1), Article 34081. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-77394-9

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-026-77394-9

Keywords: AI literacy, employment anxiety, career planning, future time perspective, vocational education, cross-sectional survey, mediation analysis, Jiangxi Province, Chinese students, chain, mediating, roles