Involvement of artificial intelligence as a psychological education workforce in the “Internet+” era

Abstract

In the context of the “Internet+” era, the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology represents an undeniable trend that brings both transformative opportunities and challenges to psychological education. Therefore, this article explored the potential role of AI as a psychological education workforce and proposes that AI can make significant contributions to psychological education through at least three approaches: (1) AI-based questionnaire surveys; (2) AI-assisted courses; and (3) AI-driven counseling. It also discussed the advantages and limitations of AI in this context. Although AI can significantly enhance the quality of psychological education, its limitations should not be overlooked. It should be used cautiously to fully realize its potential while minimizing risks.

Key Words: Artificial intelligence; Psychological education; Workforce; Internet+ era; Artificial intelligence-based questionnaire surveys; Artificial intelligence-assisted courses; Artificial intelligence-driven counseling

Core Tip: In the “Internet+” era, artificial intelligence (AI) has great potential as a psychological education workforce. This article proposed that AI can contribute to psychological education through AI-based questionnaire surveys, AI-assisted courses, and AI-driven counseling. These approaches offer advantages such as efficiency, personalization, and accessibility. However, AI has its limitations and should not be over-relied upon. We advocate for the cautious adoption of AI and the implementation of small-scale trials to optimize its application in psychological education.

INTRODUCTION

Psychological education is of upmost importance nowadays in universities. Regarding this topic, we came across an impressive mini-review[1]. The mini-review examined the opportunities and challenges faced by psychological education in the context of “Internet+”, and explored a mechanism-driven, collaborative, and efficient educational strategy that was responsive to new conditions. The mind-map of it is illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Mind map of “psychological education in higher education: Opportunities and challenges in the “Internet+” era[1].

This paper argues that the topic of such a review was rather meaningful, and it would act as a valuable reference for psychological educators. On top of that, this opinion review will attempt to add some value from the perspective of artificial intelligence (AI)-aided psychological education in universities, based on further literature survey. We will discuss the significant contributions that AI can make to psychological education by breaking through the barriers of time and location through various means, resolving the dilemma of a shortage of teaching staff, and promoting personalized learning.

POTENTIAL ROLE OF AI

In the section of exploration of psychological education in higher education in the “Internet+” era, the authors claimed that a new psychological education workforce in the “Internet+” era should be established[1]. However, the authors had focused on the educators as workforce. The “Internet+” era refers to a new stage based on internet platforms, characterized by the deep integration of the internet with traditional industries. Through technological empowerment, it optimizes resource allocation, drives innovation, and reshapes the patterns of economic and social development. It should be noticed that in the “Internet+” era, the rapid development of AI technologies is an unneglectable trend, it has brought about significant changes in various industries[2,3]. AI is a new technical science that researches and develops theories, methods, technologies, and application systems for simulating, extending, and expanding human intelligence. In particular, AI has become a workforce for production[4,5], medication[6] and education[7,8]. In production, AI-driven agriculture[9] can substantially reduce labor-intensive operations such as harvesting and plowing while facilitating efficient irrigation. In healthcare, AI demonstrates substantial potential for disease diagnosis and treatment[10], with AI/machine learning technologies[11] validated across numerous medical specialties[12-16]. In education[17,18], AI is revolutionizing traditional pedagogical approaches, enhancing efficiency and personalization. Examples include: Leveraging AI interactions for foreign language acquisition[19-21] and implementing mobile game-based learning[22,23] to create immersive educational environments. Furthermore, AI exhibits particular suitability for psychological education. This opinion review argues that AI can make great contribution to psychological education through at least three approaches: (1) AI-based questionnaire surveys; (2) AI-assisted courses; and (3) AI-driven counseling (Figure 2). The scheme is as follows.

Figure 2 Three major pathways of artificial intelligence-empowered psychological education. AI: Artificial intelligence.

AI-based questionnaire surveys

AI demonstrates strong auxiliary capabilities in the analysis of psychological measurement questionnaires. Specifically, it can streamline questionnaire design, improve analytical accuracy, and support human decision-making processes[24]. By using ChatGPT[25] to rewrite and expand items, and employing Microsoft Bing to identify the scope of other emerging topics, it significantly enhances the efficiency of questionnaire development. Compared with traditional psychological measurement questionnaire analysis without AI, AI can not only greatly shorten the development cycle of questionnaires but also integrate the latest social issues in real-time, while detecting redundant items through algorithms to improve the validity of the questionnaire. As AI continues to advance, it can now rapidly screen and categorize certain psychological disorders[26-29]. Machine learning excels at detecting subtle patterns across variables to differentiate conditions with overlapping symptoms[30], while natural language processing combined with machine learning enables dimensional symptom representation[31]. Thus, compared to conventional questionnaires, AI demonstrates superior accuracy and efficiency in psychological assessment analysis by leveraging machine learning's pattern recognition and natural language processing’s semantic comprehension capabilities. When conducting AI-based psychological measurement questionnaire analysis, it is essential to adhere to the principle of researcher-led initiatives and follow academic ethical standards. Researchers must first provide a theoretical framework, which is then expanded and optimized by AI. Finally, expert review and plagiarism detection are employed to ensure the quality of the items. Emphasizing research transparency, it is required to fully document the parameters and prompts used in AI, thereby ensuring scientific rigor while improving research efficiency.

AI-assisted courses

AI can function as a digital teaching assistant that tracks learning progress in real time, dynamically adapts instructional content, provides targeted feedback, and thereby delivers personalized learning pathways for students[32-34]. Furthermore, AI[35,36] can utilize optimization algorithms - including Ant Colony Optimization[37-39], Particle Swarm Optimization[40-42], Salp Swarm[43,44], and others - to analyze student data (personality traits, comprehension levels, and learning habits and so on), predict performance, and precisely align learning resources with personalized pathways tailored to each student’s context and goals. This allows expert teachers to deliver targeted support and enhance student outcomes. Compared with traditional psychology courses without AI, AI-enabled psychology courses can break through spatial and temporal limitations, achieve personalized teaching, track learning progress in real-time, enhance learning efficiency, and strengthen students’ research and innovative thinking abilities. It is recommended to introduce AI technology into psychology courses. In the early grades, AI teaching assistants and intelligent assessment systems can be integrated to build knowledge maps. In the higher grades, AI technology courses and a “hybrid research” framework can be introduced to encourage students to explore interdisciplinary topics between AI and psychology, and to cultivate their ability to use AI to solve practical problems. This approach fosters students’ capabilities in deploying AI to address practical challenges, thereby catalyzing innovative advancements in psychological education. At the same time, according to different stages, continuously monitor and update the personalized learning path formulated by AI to ensure the continuity and responsiveness of the personalized learning system.

AI-driven counseling

Traditional approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders suffer from limitations such as high subjectivity and time-consuming processes[45], alongside severe shortages of mental health professionals and uneven distribution of resources[46,47]. Consequently, AI technology is gradually becoming an extremely important tool in the field of psychological counseling. It can leverage models built upon massive datasets to perform automated screening and diagnosis[48], as well as engage in intelligent dialogue to provide auxiliary assistance in psychological counseling[49-51], helping physicians diagnose and treat patients faster and more accurately. These technologies offer advantages including low cost, high efficiency, objectivity, and the ability to reach populations in resource-scarce regions. One study[52] indicates that AI achieves approximately 89% accuracy in analyzing psychological conditions. Currently, AI has enabled the development of 24-hour online consultation platforms[53,54], intelligent customer service robots[55,56], and other applications that simulate doctors’ question-and-answer processes through simple conversations, breaking temporal and geographical constraints and alleviating the shortage of counseling resources[57]. In the future, as an auxiliary tool, AI will enhance emotional interaction capabilities, becoming more intelligent and personalized.

In summary, in the area of AI-based questionnaire surveys, AI can optimize questionnaire design, intelligently rewrite items, improve the efficiency of questionnaire development, and enhance the accuracy of questionnaire analysis through machine learning and natural language processing, while attention must be paid to academic ethical norms. In AI-assisted courses, AI serves as an auxiliary tool that can track learning progress in real time, break through spatial and temporal limitations, enable personalized learning pathways, and improve learning efficiency. In AI-driven counseling, AI can be applied to scenarios such as 24-hour online platforms through automated screening and intelligent dialogue, effectively alleviating resource shortages and uneven distribution, while providing low-cost, high-efficiency auxiliary support. In the future, AI will continue to advance toward greater intelligence and personalization.

DISCUSSION

The application of AI in college psychological education exhibits a distinct duality. Defining AI as “workforce” rather than merely a tool serves to highlight its agency, prompting a critical re-examination of relevant policies and resource allocation mechanisms, thereby injecting vitality into its sustainable development within psychoeducation.

On the positive side, AI has the ability to provide personalized teaching support and conduct intelligent psychological counseling[58]. It can be customized according to the students’ pace, time, and space. Meanwhile, the system should also have sufficient capabilities to help individuals cope with emotional traumas. Intelligent psychological counseling can enhance efficiency, reduce human resource consumption, and address shortages of mental health service resources in certain areas, providing robust technical support for remote psychological education.

On the other hand, AI has limitations, and over-reliance on it poses potential risks. AI cannot yet replace the unique advantages of human counselors in areas such as emotional understanding and complex case handling. It fails to provide empathic understanding. What it presents as “empathy” is but a programmed facsimile of data[58] - devoid of consciousness and lacking in true emotional or subjective experience. It is, therefore, not the emotional resonance that flows between human beings. Meanwhile, there are also issues with the reliability of AI in psychological education. These flaws can erode user trust, raise ethical concerns, and blur the lines of responsibility when harm occurs.

Nevertheless, we must recognize the role of AI in current and future college psychological education, actively embrace change, and use it cautiously, and critically describe the positive and negative impacts of AI and data in education. This issue has also garnered attention from institutions and governments worldwide. For example, the European Commission[59] has issued relevant ethical guidelines, aiming to integrate AI into school education while enhancing awareness of potential risks. We recommend that colleges start with small-scale pilots, such as introducing AI chatbots[60], and adjust implementation strategies based on the pilot results to fully leverage the advantages of AI.

CONCLUSION

This opinion review systematically explored the potential value of AI as a new type of workforce in psychological education. It proposed that AI demonstrates unique advantages in questionnaire development, course assistance, and psychological counseling, enhancing efficiency, expanding resource coverage, and promoting educational innovation. Despite its significant strengths, the inherent deficits of AI cannot be overlooked. Therefore, we suggest unleashing the application potential of AI through pilot projects and continuous evaluation. In the future, with the continuous advancement of AI technology and the accumulation of experience, its application in psychological education will become more extensive and in-depth. We anticipate that our institute (Jinan University) can launch a pilot program about AI-assisted psychological education based on the current psychological counselling programs, which can be popularized to other institutes. It is expected to bring more opportunities for mental health services and educational innovation, and drive psychological education towards a new stage of intelligence and personalization.