Research, publications, and questions on AI-assisted learning.
Research interests
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
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
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
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