AI awareness and career education in Chinese higher education: serial mediation effects on self-efficacy, employability confidence, and employability

Abstract

Amidst rapid AI-driven labour market transformations, this study investigates how AI awareness and career education jointly enhance career development competencies among Chinese university students in China. Grounded in Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), this research examined the mediating roles of self-efficacy and employability confidence in linking AI awareness and career education to employability. Utilising administrated questionnaire survey from 460 Chinese university students in China and partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), the results demonstrate that: (1) AI awareness and career education positively correlate with self-efficacy, employability confidence and employability; (2) Self-efficacy mediates the relationship between AI awareness, career education and employability confidence; (3) employability confidence mediate the relationship between self-efficacy and employability. These findings underscore the critical need to integrate AI literacy into career education curricula to cultivate a future-ready workforce. The study extends SCT by contextualising digital-age career adaptability mechanisms and provides empirically driven strategies for higher education policymakers.