Human Centred Educational Technology and Generative AI for Vocational and Creative Education: A Critical Integrative Review

Abstract

Educational technology and Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) can expand feedback, simulation, ideation, and access to learning resources, yet their educational value depends on pedagogy, inclusion, integrity, and institutional accountability. This critical integrative review examines how these conditions shape responsible technology integration and how they apply to vocational and creative education. A purposive analytical corpus of 20 peer-reviewed articles published in 2021–2024 comprised 12 reviews or syntheses, four empirical studies, and four conceptual or critical studies. Design-sensitive appraisal and a framework-based thematic synthesis produced six themes: pedagogical alignment; teacher capability and workload; learner agency and authentic assessment; equity and accessibility; ethics, privacy, authorship, and intellectual property; and governance through staged evidence. The synthesis indicates that GenAI is most defensible when it supports rather than substitutes for human judgement, disciplinary practice, iterative feedback, and visible evidence of learning. In vocational and creative settings, applications include graphic ideation, content production, portfolio development, workplace simulation, and prototype feedback, but implementation should retain process records, human critique, copyright safeguards, and industry validation. The review contributes a human centred ecosystem and an evidence gated implementation roadmap linking learning quality, equity, integrity, workload, and accountability. Because the corpus was purposively retained from an earlier review archive and formal search strings and screening counts were unavailable, the findings do not establish prevalence, causality, or comprehensive coverage. Future research should validate the framework through multi-site vocational and creative education pilots.