Metacognitive AI literacy: going beyond the AI skills gap agenda

Synthesis: Shapiro, Souto-Otero, and Watermeyer (2026) argue that conventional AI literacy frameworks anchored in functional skills acquisition fail to address the fundamental epistemological challenges posed by probabilistic, opaque algorithmic systems. They reconceptualize AI literacy as a metacognitive social practice that transcends individual competencies to encompass collective capacity for critical engagement with AI design, deployment, and governance. Drawing on case studies from higher education institutions and the Nordic financial sector, they illustrate how participatory co-design processes and experimental pedagogical spaces can cultivate metacognitive awareness and democratic agency — arguing that universities must evolve beyond skills transmission to become sites of collective intelligence that anchor AI literacy as a public good.

Key Findings

AI literacy is a paradigm shift, not an extension of digital literacy: the probabilistic nature and epistemic opacity of contemporary AI systems (particularly large language models) render traditional rule-based digital literacy paradigms obsolete; learners must navigate probabilistic reasoning, continuously question outcomes, and consider AI's broader impacts.

Reconceptualizes AI literacy as a metacognitive social practice — transcending individual skill acquisition toward collective critical engagement with AI design, deployment, and governance, rather than just functional tool use.

Case studies show participatory co-design and experimental pedagogical spaces cultivate metacognitive awareness: examples include Aalborg (interdisciplinary project-based engineering), Aalto, Strathmore (GAEIA, engaging ~200 postgraduate students across Global North and South), Northeastern's "robot-proof" university / Humanics model, Stanford's sandbox environments, and a Nordic bank's agentic-AI implementation that used co-design as a vehicle for metacognition.

Efficacious AI literacy requires institutional transformation: universities must evolve beyond skills transmission to become sites of collective intelligence where learners interrogate algorithmic power structures and mobilize alternative AI futures; AI literacy is framed as a governance problem, not merely a technical or educational challenge.

The framework transforms universities across three dimensions: epistemically (beyond functional skills to interrogating how algorithmic systems reshape knowledge production), civically (cultivating ethical agency to contest power asymmetries), and institutionally (reclaiming legitimacy as custodians of collective intelligence rather than vendors of digital credentials).

Study Design & Method

This is a conceptual/argumentative article (not an empirical study) drawing on case studies and literature analysis. It synthesizes scholarship on digital/media literacies, critical pedagogy, algorithmic governance, and higher education transformation (including Giroux, Marginson, Williamson, Pangrazio, Crawford, Eubanks, and Watermeyer). The authors present illustrative case studies of AI literacy in practice across higher education institutions (Aalborg, Aalto, Strathmore, Northeastern, Stanford) and the adult continuing training sector (a Nordic bank's agentic-AI implementation), examining how metacognitive AI literacy is operationalized across pedagogical design, organisational governance, and socio-technical experimentation.

Implications for AI in Education

The article reframes AI Literacy away from functional skills acquisition toward a metacognitive social practice relevant to Higher Ed and AI Education. It argues that embedding AI literacy requires more than adding AI courses or tools — learning environments must enable learners to monitor and adjust their strategies in response to uncertain or opaque results, fostering scientific scepticism rather than narrow functional proficiency, connecting to Metacognition and Critical Thinking. It positions universities as essential infrastructure for civic resilience, demanding a fundamental reconfiguration of university missions, governance structures, and pedagogical approaches so AI literacy serves as a public good rather than a private asset. The article's case studies offer concrete models (participatory co-design, experimental pedagogical spaces, challenge-based collaboration) for cultivating metacognitive awareness and democratic agency, relevant to Teacher Role and Ethics and to algorithmic governance.

Limitations

As a conceptual article, the argument is not empirically tested, and the case studies are illustrative rather than systematically evaluated. The authors acknowledge the tension that universities operate under neoliberal funding regimes and "efficiency logics" that marginalize critical pedagogy, which limits the practical feasibility of the proposed transformation. The Nordic financial-sector case is adult-learning-focused rather than higher-education-specific, and the institutional examples span very different national contexts without comparative assessment. The proposal for institutional transformation is programmatic rather than operationalized.

Connected Concepts

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Constructing Epistemic AI Literacy Student AI Co Programming — Constructing Epistemic AI Literacy

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AI Literacy Power Knowledge — AI Literacy: An Exercise in Power-Knowledge

Posthumanist AI Literacy 2025 — A Posthumanist Approach to AI Literacy

Citation

Shapiro, H., Souto-Otero, M., & Watermeyer, R. (2026). Metacognitive AI literacy: Going beyond the AI skills gap agenda. Learning, Media and Technology.