AI-Enhanced Educational Approaches and Soft Skills Development in Vocational Education: The Moderating Role of Metacognitive Ability

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly embedded in vocational education through adaptive learning systems, large language model tutors, immersive simulation, and learning analytics. Yet the literature remains fragmented regarding whether AI-enhanced educational approaches consistently strengthen students’ soft skills and under what learner-level conditions such effects emerge. This critical review synthesizes theoretical, empirical, contextual, and methodological scholarship concerning AI-enhanced education, vocational college students’ soft skills, and metacognitive ability. Drawing on the literature corpus assembled in the original Chapter 2, the review integrates Cognitive Load Theory, Self-Regulated Learning Theory, and Social Cognitive Theory and critically compares complementary perspectives including the Expertise Reversal Effect, the Technology Acceptance Model, and UTAUT. Soft skills are organized into three interrelated dimensions: critical thinking and analytical skills, emotional intelligence and empathy, and psychological resilience. The synthesis indicates that AI may produce both enabling and constraining effects: personalized feedback, dialogue, simulation, and learning analytics can support higher-order and socio-emotional competencies, whereas cognitive offloading and excessive reliance may weaken independent judgment. Metacognitive ability is therefore proposed as a key boundary condition that can shape how learners select, monitor, evaluate, and regulate AI-supported learning. Particular attention is given to Chinese vocational education and the Shandong context, where industrial structure and digital vocational education policies create a distinctive setting for empirical examination. Four gaps are identified: contextual-regional evidence, integrated quantitative testing, qualitative mechanism explanation, and methodological integration. The review consequently supports an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design for testing the direct association between AI-enhanced educational approaches and soft skills and the moderating role of metacognitive ability.