{"title":"The impact of AI literacy on work-life balance and job satisfaction among university faculty: a self-determination theory perspective.","authors":"Ling Huang, Yuping Zhao","doi":"10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1669247","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Introduction: </strong>The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the nature of academic work, yet the role of AI literacy in supporting faculty well-being remains underexplored. This study investigates how AI literacy influences university faculty's work-life balance and job satisfaction through the satisfaction of three basic psychological needs.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Survey data were collected from 511 faculty members. Measures included AI literacy, perceived autonomy, perceived competence, perceived relatedness, work-life balance, job satisfaction, and technology acceptance. Statistical analyses examined the direct and indirect effects of AI literacy on faculty well-being.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The findings indicate that AI literacy significantly enhances the satisfaction of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. These, in turn, promote greater work-life balance. Further analysis shows that only perceived autonomy directly predicts job satisfaction, while competence and relatedness influence job satisfaction indirectly through work-life balance. Technology acceptance was found to moderate the relationship between AI literacy and psychological need fulfillment.</p><p><strong>Discussion: </strong>This study illuminates the psychological pathways through which AI literacy contributes to faculty well-being. It extends the application of Self-Determination Theory to technology-intensive academic settings and offers practical implications for designing AI literacy initiatives and faculty support strategies in higher education.</p>","PeriodicalId":12525,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Psychology","volume":"16 ","pages":"1669247"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9000,"publicationDate":"2025-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12487956/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Frontiers in Psychology","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1669247","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2025/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Introduction: The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the nature of academic work, yet the role of AI literacy in supporting faculty well-being remains underexplored. This study investigates how AI literacy influences university faculty's work-life balance and job satisfaction through the satisfaction of three basic psychological needs.
Methods: Survey data were collected from 511 faculty members. Measures included AI literacy, perceived autonomy, perceived competence, perceived relatedness, work-life balance, job satisfaction, and technology acceptance. Statistical analyses examined the direct and indirect effects of AI literacy on faculty well-being.
Results: The findings indicate that AI literacy significantly enhances the satisfaction of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. These, in turn, promote greater work-life balance. Further analysis shows that only perceived autonomy directly predicts job satisfaction, while competence and relatedness influence job satisfaction indirectly through work-life balance. Technology acceptance was found to moderate the relationship between AI literacy and psychological need fulfillment.
Discussion: This study illuminates the psychological pathways through which AI literacy contributes to faculty well-being. It extends the application of Self-Determination Theory to technology-intensive academic settings and offers practical implications for designing AI literacy initiatives and faculty support strategies in higher education.
期刊介绍：
Frontiers in Psychology is the largest journal in its field, publishing rigorously peer-reviewed research across the psychological sciences, from clinical research to cognitive science, from perception to consciousness, from imaging studies to human factors, and from animal cognition to social psychology. Field Chief Editor Axel Cleeremans at the Free University of Brussels is supported by an outstanding Editorial Board of international researchers. This multidisciplinary open-access journal is at the forefront of disseminating and communicating scientific knowledge and impactful discoveries to researchers, academics, clinicians and the public worldwide. The journal publishes the best research across the entire field of psychology. Today, psychological science is becoming increasingly important at all levels of society, from the treatment of clinical disorders to our basic understanding of how the mind works. It is highly interdisciplinary, borrowing questions from philosophy, methods from neuroscience and insights from clinical practice - all in the goal of furthering our grasp of human nature and society, as well as our ability to develop new intervention methods.
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