Digital Transformation and Vocational Teacher Role Reshaping: Industry Collaboration, AI Application and Workplace-Authentic AI Pedagogy in Liaoning Province.

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Bibliographic Details
Title:	Digital Transformation and Vocational Teacher Role Reshaping: Industry Collaboration, AI Application and Workplace-Authentic AI Pedagogy in Liaoning Province.
Authors:	Tang, Chi¹, Rosli, Rozaini Binti¹ rozaini@lincoln.edu.my
Source:	International Journal of Special Education. 2026 Special Issue, Vol. 41, p42-60. 19p.
Subject Terms:	Teacher role, Artificial intelligence, Digital literacy, Vocational guidance, *Digital transformation, Industrial cooperation, Provinces
Geographic Terms:	Liaoning Sheng (China), China
Abstract:	Purpose: This study develops a mediation framework explaining how institutional digital transformation may reshape vocational teachers' roles in Liaoning Province, China, through industry collaboration and AI application. It responds to a persistent problem in TVET reform: digital platforms, smart classrooms and AI-enabled systems do not automatically change teachers' professional judgement, boundary work or role identity. Design/methodology/approach: This conceptual paper combines role theory, socio-technical perspectives, teacher digital competence research and recent TVET scholarship. It specifies nine hypotheses and sets out a proposed empirical testing strategy for future survey-based PLS-SEM analysis, while making clear that the present manuscript does not report field data or statistical findings. Findings: The framework suggests that industry collaboration operates as a workplace-authenticity mechanism and that AI application operates as a pedagogical-intelligence mechanism. Their serial connection explains how authentic enterprise tasks, standards and assessment criteria can be converted into AI-supported diagnosis, simulation, feedback and evaluation. The proposed concept of workplace-authentic AI pedagogy captures this linkage. Originality/value: The study shifts attention from infrastructure-centred digitalisation to teacher role reconstruction. It theorises digital transformation as a role-structuring condition and positions Liaoning as an industrial and policy setting in which digital governance, school-enterprise collaboration and AI-supported pedagogy intersect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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Database:	Education Research Complete

Description
Abstract:	Purpose: This study develops a mediation framework explaining how institutional digital transformation may reshape vocational teachers' roles in Liaoning Province, China, through industry collaboration and AI application. It responds to a persistent problem in TVET reform: digital platforms, smart classrooms and AI-enabled systems do not automatically change teachers' professional judgement, boundary work or role identity. Design/methodology/approach: This conceptual paper combines role theory, socio-technical perspectives, teacher digital competence research and recent TVET scholarship. It specifies nine hypotheses and sets out a proposed empirical testing strategy for future survey-based PLS-SEM analysis, while making clear that the present manuscript does not report field data or statistical findings. Findings: The framework suggests that industry collaboration operates as a workplace-authenticity mechanism and that AI application operates as a pedagogical-intelligence mechanism. Their serial connection explains how authentic enterprise tasks, standards and assessment criteria can be converted into AI-supported diagnosis, simulation, feedback and evaluation. The proposed concept of workplace-authentic AI pedagogy captures this linkage. Originality/value: The study shifts attention from infrastructure-centred digitalisation to teacher role reconstruction. It theorises digital transformation as a role-structuring condition and positions Liaoning as an industrial and policy setting in which digital governance, school-enterprise collaboration and AI-supported pedagogy intersect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
ISSN:	08273383