Rethinking the Function of Educators in the Era of Intelligent Technologies: Digital Soft Skills as a Driver of Teacher Professional Satisfaction

Submission 161

Presented by: Ugne Supranaviciene

Meiqi Zhang ¹, Ugne Supranaviciene ³, Genute Gedviliene ²

¹ Vytautas Magnus University

² Vytautas Magnus University (MRU PhD Candidate)

³ Vytautas Magnus University

Current global educational frameworks, such as DigCompEdu and TPACK, primarily focus on competence constructs but systematically undertheorise the psychosocial dimensions influencing teacher satisfaction and retention. As artificial intelligence recalibrates the limits of professional knowledge work, educators face a structural paradox: they are called to be agents of digital transformation yet remain its least prepared participants. This research warns that accelerating AI integration without addressing technostress, workload management, and ethical literacy risks exacerbating teacher turnover. Based on a national project in Lithuania, this paper employs a mixed-methods approach to outline how five distinct clusters of soft skills relate to professional satisfaction within the lifelong learning paradigm.

The research examines the interplay between soft skills, self-efficacy, and technostress. The emerging model views teachers as active professionals whose viability depends on integrating pedagogical, emotional, and digital fluency. By offering evidence-driven solutions via the EDU Lab platform, this research fills critical gaps in soft skill development within Baltic educational contexts.

In this paper, national research whose purpose is to provide an empirically grounded soft skills development model for the Lithuanian educators clearly outlines how five distinct clusters of soft skills relate to teacher professional satisfaction within the lifelong learning paradigm (incl. improving digital literacy and AI competencies as the structurally dominant & fastest-evolving cluster).

The methodology of the research is based on a three-step mixed-methods approach. The research evidence is clear that digital competency is only a protective factor for teacher well-being if it is part of a larger supportive school context, not an isolated solution.

The emerging model views teachers not as passive recipients of technological change, but as active professionals whose viability is tied to a developing interplay between pedagogical, emotional, and digital fluency.