Research, publications, and questions on AI-assisted learning.
My research asks how the design of technology shapes teachers and learners, especially around judgment, care, feedback, and agency.
Research interests
The problem areas currently connecting my academic work.
Teacher experience, judgment, and agency in the age of AI
Care-oriented feedback and learner wellbeing in technology-mediated learning
Technology-supported collaborative learning and learning design
Research agenda
Mixed methods, explanatory sequential designs, quasi-experimental designs, survey and scale development, reflexive thematic analysis, design-based research, and systematic review.
My research turns on a single question: as AI enters education, how does the design of technology shape the people inside it — teachers and learners alike? I treat platform and interface design as a choice that carries ethical and emotional weight, studying how it bears on teachers' judgment and emotional labour, and on learners' anxiety and engagement. I work deliberately across both ends, research and building: using empirical work to understand a problem, and making tools to respond to it.
Ongoing research
Current projects on care, feedback, AI, and language learning.
Caring for Language Teachers in the Age of AI
This project evaluates a school's AI support system itself as a practice of care. When institutions push AI adoption faster than teachers' professional readiness, teachers carry invisible emotional labour. The study uses the 88 language teachers of one bilingual K-12 school for a within-institution comparison, following an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design: a whole-population survey first, then stratified interviews and focus groups.
Non-Evaluative Feedback as a Form of Care
This project treats feedback design as an ethical and emotional question. Through a quasi-experiment, it compares a cozy-game environment with non-evaluative, low-stakes feedback against an evaluative-pressure vocabulary platform, asking whether non-evaluative feedback can reduce anxiety and support more sustainable learning.
Publications
Journal article and book chapters in press.
Design-based research on developing collaborative writing lessons: The learning process of TESOL student teachers
Zehao Li, Jiachen Xu, & Ziying Chen
Developing in-house materials for junior secondary English classrooms: A focus on enhancing authenticity in the context of Hong Kong, China
Integrating travel blogs into language learning: A genre-based and process writing approach
Zehao Li, Ziying Chen, & Jiachen Xu
Developing in-house materials for junior secondary English classrooms: A focus on enhancing authenticity in the context of Hong Kong, China