Human-Centred AI EdTech: Promoting Reading Engagement and Emotional Well-being in Children.

This project supports a larger research program aimed at improving literacy and mental health outcomes in young people through individualised care, school-based programs, and digital health interventions. The proposed PhD project has two goals. First, it will leverage the Bookbot platform and data from over 5,000 users to evaluate a new psychosocial model linking reading difficulty, engagement, and emotional health outcomes (including self-concept and anxiety). This includes validating new psychometric tools developed by myself and Prof. McArthur for measuring reading engagement and emotional health. These tools will be validated using key quantitative metrics from Bookbot, aiding in the platform’s evaluation with gold-standard metrics and providing insights into psychological factors affecting reading and emotional health. Second, the project will explore and evaluate the design and positioning of AI agents to promote engagement in children, using a co-design and inductive approach.