Heather Wehner, Author at EduTec Science

Sep122025 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

A Warm Welcome to our New Colleague Leon Camus

Team

We happily introduce Leon Camus, who has joined our team this September as a doctoral researcher. Leon’s research journey began during his Bachelor's studies, where he explored short answer grading in educational contexts. He continued this line of work during his Master's in Computer Science at TU Darmstadt, focusing on the implementation and enhancement of short answer grading systems with integrated feedback mechanisms. Throughout his academic career, Leon has gained extensive experience in digital learning environments—designing, extending and applying them in various educational settings. His expertise spans natural language processing, educational technology and automated assessment. Building on his foundation in natural language procesing, his PhD research focuses on automatic annotation of textual data. We look forward to accompanying you on your academic journey and welcome you to the EduTec team!

Jul212025 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

New Pub: How Feedback Literacy Moderates Student Perceptions of Feedback

Feedback, Higher Education, Journal, New Pub

Whether or not students receive effective feedback can have a big impact on their overall learning process. The more qualitative and personalized the feedback is, the more effective it is in supporting the students with their individual learning goals. The latest developments in learning analytics and artificial intelligence have made it possible to provide a large number of students with personalized feedback automatically and simultaneously. Despite these technical advances, there is still much to be learned about the ability of students to use this feedback for their scholastic benefit. So far, only a limited number of studies have examined the impact of feedback literacy on students' perceptions of feedback, which is particularly true for technology-enhanced learning environments. A newly published paper addresses this issue and focuses on how students interpret…

Jun272025 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

New Pub: How Learners Interpret and Respond to Feedback in Learning Analytics Dashboards

Feedback, Journal, New Pub, Self-Regulation

Online learning platforms can generate a great amount of data about how students engage in the learning process. This data is used to develop learning analytics dashboards as feedback tools to assist students in self-regulating their learning. But how do students use these tools to self-reflect? And how can they use the information provided by learning analytics dashboards (LAD) in a meaningful way? In a new publication these questions are explored using the data from an experimental study with 417 students, which investigated how the students interpret and respond to feedback from LADs. In the study, the students were divided into 2 groups: A treatment group was given personalized self-regulated learning (SRL) feedback from the LAD on the basis of interactions and progress; A control group was given minimal feedback…

Jun122025 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

New Pub: Tracking students’ progression in developing understanding of energy using AI technologies

Artificial Intelligence, Journal, Publication, School

[caption id="attachment_7553" align="alignright" width="400"] Instructional unit, with pre- and post-test, as well as lesson-set-level assessment[/caption] In physics education, some students fail to have the foundational knowledge of energy concepts needed to engage in societal debates on climate change and energy transformation. A newly published study highlights the potential of AI to identify students with different learning trajectories and to help bridge the knowledge gaps. The researchers used a digital workbook designed to teach energy concepts to collect detailed interaction data from over 500 students. After applying exclusion criteria, data from 172 students were analyzed to identify their productive and unproductive learning curves. [caption id="attachment_7554" align="alignleft" width="400"] Example single choice pretest item[/caption] By using machine learning, specifically random forest models, and natural language processing (NLP), the researchers were able to classify…

Jun52025 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

A Warm Welcome to Our Guest Researcher Yildiz Uzun

New Pub

We are delighted to welcome Yildiz Uzun as a guest researcher in our team! Yildiz is a PhD student at the Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education (IOE), University College London (UCL). Her research explores how students regulate their learning with the support of learning analytics feedback in the form of a dashboard, with a particular focus on how they engage with this feedback. She also examines how engagement with analytics feedback can be scaffolded and enhanced through the integration of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) assistant. During her visit to DIPF, she will collaborate with Prof. Hendrik Drachsler and the EduTec team to advance her current AI-driven feedback process by analysing student queries to the AI assistant, evaluating the pedagogical quality of AI responses and identifying ways to optimise conversational systems…

May222025 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

New Pub: Pedagogical Framework for Hybrid Intelligent Feedback

Artificial Intelligence, Feedback, Journal, Publication

[caption id="attachment_7525" align="alignright" width="300"] Principles of hybrid intelligent Feedback[/caption] ChatGPT and other Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tools have quickly become an active part of everyday academic life. Both teachers and students use them regularly to do research, summarize texts or responses, create exercises or quizzes or explain course content. But GenAI needs to be used in a sensible manner and consistent with sound teaching principles. Otherwise, it could lead to an over-reliance on technology and neglect the important roles of teachers and students. Ideally, GenAI should be used to complement rather than replace human-centered education. When pedagogical practices combine the strengths of humans and AI, this can ultimately lead to enhanced creativity, empathy and academic comprehension of students. A recently published paper explores a promising field of human-AI collaboration in…

May152025 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

ML2MT at the “AI and the Future of Society” Symposium

Artificial Intelligence, Conference, Event

At the final symposium “AI and the Future of Society” on April 23, 2025, the ML2MT project team presented key outcomes from their research on human-machine collaboration. Moving beyond traditional AI, the project explored how machines and humans can mutually benefit and learn from each other in a continuous loop. The results of this interdisciplinary project span multiple domains: In medicine, AI systems were found not only to assist diagnoses but also to promote reflection among professionals, encouraging deeper awareness of their decision-making processes. In education, adaptive AI tools were developed to analyze student feedback and help teachers identify learning gaps more effectively. In human-AI interaction, systems were designed to remember and apply user feedback, improving efficiency and reducing the need for repetitive input. Looking ahead, the project will focus…

Apr232025 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

Job Openings for Research Assistants in the Field of AI

Job announcements

We currently have 2 job offers open for a total of three new members to join our team: 1 Research Assistant for a PhD in the Field of AI for Processing and Analyzing Text-Based Data in Education Full-time, temporary for 3 years at DIPF in Frankfurt with the following tasks: Processing and analyzing text-based data from learning management systems, assessment systems and qualitative data sources such as interview transcripts Implementation, further development and adaptation of AI models and research prototypes for the annotation and scoring of text data, in particular for the optimization of AI-supported teaching and learning in school and university contexts Participation in scientific conferences, organization of workshops as well as giving lectures and scientific publications Developing your own scientific research question and independent research activities in the…

Apr232025 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

New Pub: On-Your Marks, Ready? Exploring the User Experience of a VR Application for Runners

Multimodal Learning Analytics, Publication

Do you wish to be a better runner and ready to get going? Becoming a better runner is more than just choosing the right pair of running shoes and increasing your physical ability to perform a successful run. You also need to be mentally prepared to increase your running productivity. Here is where Virtual Reality (VR) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can help. Up until now, there have been limited options available for mental training using technologies like sensors and actuators. These technologies have primarily been used to improve physical training. A newly published study explores the possibilities that VR and CBT have to create a technology-based mental training for athletes. Our team carried out a formative study to explore the user experience by incorporating CBT techniques into VR technology,…

Apr152025 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

New Pub: Enhancing User Onboarding in Virtual Reality Educational Applications

Multimodal Learning Analytics, Publication

Learning in a Virtual Reality (VR) environment can be a captivating and immersive experience for students. Despite the potential that VR has to help students learn in new and exciting ways, many students may also struggle during their initial interactions with a given VR environment. Whether or not effective user onboarding takes place can be the make or break of an application’s success. A new publication sheds light on this key challenge of effective onboarding by exploring how pre-training methods impact the onboarding experience in VR educational applications. 36 people, primarily university students, participated in a study to understand how different approaches affected their ability to navigate VR environments and their overall satisfaction. The findings show that pre-training helps users get an orientation and slightly boosts satisfaction, but it falls…