Ying Xu
Harvard University
Graduate School of Education
13 Appian Way, Cambridge, MA 02138
E-mail: yingxu@g.harvard.edu
Website: ying-xu.com
ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS
2024- Assistant Professor
Graduate School of Education, Harvard University
2022-2024 Assistant Professor
School of Education, University of Michigan
2022-2024 Faculty Affiliate
The Combined Program in Education and Psychology, University of Michigan
Michigan Institute for Data Science, University of Michigan
2021-2022 Postdoctoral Scholar
School of Education, University of California, Irvine
EDUCATION
2020 Ph.D. in Education (specialization: Language, Literacy, and Technology)
University of California, Irvine
Dissertation: Learning with Conversational Agents
Committee: Mark Warschauer (Chair, UC Irvine Education), Stacy Branham (UC Irvine Informatics), Young-suk Kim (UC Irvine Education), Penelope Collins (UC Irvine Education), Arthur Graesser (University of Memphis Psychology and Institute for Intelligent Systems)
2010 B.A. in Chinese Linguistics and Literature
Sun Yat-Sen University, China
HONORS/AWARDS
2025 Best Paper Award in the International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction
2025 Best Short Paper Award at the 2025 ACM Conference on Interaction Design and Children
2024 Editor’s Choice in The Journal of Educational Psychology
2023 Best Paper Award at the 2023 ACM Conference on Interaction Design and Children
2023 Early Career Interdisciplinary Scholars Fellowship, Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD)
2021 Best Paper Award Honorable Mention at the 2021 American Educational Research Association annual (AERA) conferences, Technology as an Agent of Change in Teaching and Learning Special Interest Group
2020 Best Paper Award Honorable Mention at the 2020 ACM Conference on Interaction Design and Children
2020 Research and Design Competition Honorable Mention at the 2020 ACM Conference on Interaction Design and Children
2020 Doctoral Consortium at the 2020 ACM Conference on Interaction Design and Children
2020 Grad Slam Finalist (Scientific Communication Competition) UC Irvine
2019 Public Impact Distinguished Fellow UC Irvine
2019 Best Short Paper Award at the 2019 ACM Conference on Interaction Design and Children
2018 Best Paper Award Honorable Mention at the 2018 American Educational Research Association annual (AERA) conferences, Technology as an Agent of Change in Teaching and Learning Special Interest Group
GRANT FUNDING
External grants
2026-2027 Digital Promise, $250,000, PI
OpenLiteracy: An Open-Source AI Infrastructure Suite for Advancing Speech Foundation Models for Early Word Reading Assessment and Instruction
2026-2027 Sesame Workshop, $35,000, PI
Case Studies on Evaluating AI Product Safety Using Benchmark Data
2026-2027 Children & Screens, $150,000, Co-PI
Adolescent AI Companion Use: Bidirectional Links with Social Relationships and Mental Health
2026-2028 Esther A. & Joseph Klingenstein Fund, $150,000, PI
Generative AI Agents and Young Children
2025-2027 Overdeck Family Foundation, $200,000, PI
Effects of Using Artificial Intelligence to Support Children’s STEM Learning From Educational Television Programs: Evidence From a Home-Based Intervention
2025-2026 National Science Foundation, Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, Faculty Sponsor
SPRF: Children’s Recognition of Errors Made by Generative AI
2024-2028 National Science Foundation, AISL, $700,000, PI
Collaborative Research: Advancing Latino Children’s Science Learning through Community Co-Design of AI-Enhanced Bilingual E-Books [terminated in April 2025]
2023-2024 National Science Foundation, ITEST, $200,000, Co-PI
RAPID DRL AI: Empowering Teachers to Collaborate with Generative AI for Developing High-Quality STEM Learning Resources
2023-2027 National Science Foundation, RETTL, $850,000, PI
Building A Teacher-AI Collaborative System for Personalized Instruction and Assessment of Comprehension Skills
2021-2027 National Science Foundation, AISL, $3,000,000, Co-PI
Developing Conversational Videos to Support Children’s STEM Learning and Engagement
2021-2022 Schmidt Futures, $50,000, PI
Automatic Question-Answer Generation for Narrative Comprehension Skills Learning and Assessment
Internal grants
2026-2027 Mind Brain Behavior Interdisciplinary Mind Grant, Faculty Sponsor
Conceptualization, Measurement, and Intervention of Critical Thinking in the Age of AI
2026-2029 Harvard Impact Labs, Co-PI
Harnessing Generative AI for Equitable and Scalable Teaching and Learning: An Initiative to Transform Math Education in Low-Resource Settings
2026-2028 Harvard Graduate School of Education Dean’s Impact Fund, PI
Generative AI Agents and Young Children
2024-2025 Harvard Graduate School of Education Dean’s Impact Fund, Co-PI
LEARN Labs Consortium Database Infrastructure
2023-2024 University of Michigan ADVANCE Program, PI
Identifying Biases in Speech Recognition Against Bilingual Children: Implications for Technology Improvement and Education
Publications
Monograph
Xu, Y., & He, K. (2026).
Growing up with AI: Implications for
child development. Cambridge University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009503914
Journal Articles
Li, Z., Thomas, T., Yu, C.-L., &
Xu, Y. (2026). Children’s
communication repairs with AI versus human partners.
International
Journal of Human-Computer Studies.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2026.103800
He, K., Cervera, K., Levine, J.,
Xu, Y., Collins, P., & Warschauer,
M. (2025). Promoting parent-child shared reading with a bilingual
conversational agent.
International Journal of Human-Computer
Studies.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2025.103489
Xu, Y., Pan, Z., Levine, J., He, K., & Thomas, T. (2025). The
effects of interactions with AI-enhanced media characters on learning
computational thinking.
Learning and Instruction.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2025.102149
Xu, Y., Thomas, T., Yu, C.-L., & Pan, Z. (2025). What makes children
perceive or not perceive minds in generative AI?
Computers in Human
Behavior: Artificial Humans.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbah.2025.100135
Xu, Y., He, K., Levine, J., Ritchie, D., Pan, Z., Bustamante, A., &
Warschauer, M. (2024). Artificial intelligence enhances children’s
science learning from television shows.
Journal of Educational
Psychology,
116(7), 1071–1092.
https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000889
Xu, Y., Thomas, T., Li, Z., Chan, M., Lin, G., & Moore, K. (2024).
Examining children’s perceptions of AI-enabled interactive media
characters.
International Journal of Child-Computer
Interaction.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcci.2024.100700
Yang, D., Ge, Y., Sun, Y., Collins, P., Jaeggi, S.,
Xu, Y., Shea, Z. M.,
& Warschauer, M. (2024). Self-regulation and comprehension in shared
reading: The moderating effects of verbal interactions and e-book
discussion prompts.
Child Development,
00, 1–16.
https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.14128
Xu, Y. (2023). Talking with machines: Can conversational technologies
serve as children’s social partners?
Child Development
Perspectives.
https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12475
Xu, Y., Bradford, N., & Garg, R. (2023). Transparency enhances
positive perceptions of social artificial intelligence.
Human
Behavior and Emerging Technologies.
https://doi.org/10.1155/2023/5550418
Xu, Y., Aubele, J., Vigil, V., Bustamante, A., Kim, Y.-S., &
Warschauer, M. (2022). Dialogue with a conversational agent promotes
children’s story comprehension via enhanced engagement.
Child
Development.
https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13708
Xu, Y., Vigil, V., Bustamante, A., & Warschauer, M. (2022).
Contingent interaction with a television character enabled by artificial
intelligence promotes children’s science learning and engagement.
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2022.101439
Xu, Y., Wang, D., Collins, P., Lee, H., & Warschauer, M. (2021).
Same benefits, different communication patterns: Comparing children’s
reading with a conversational agent vs. A human partner.
Computers
& Education,
161, 104059.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2020.104059
Umarji, O., Day, S.,
Xu, Y., Zargar, E., Connor, C., & Yu, R.
(2020). Opening the black box: User-log analysis of children’s e-book
reading and association with word knowledge.
Reading and
Writing.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-020-10081-x
Xu, Y., Yau, J., & Reich, S. (2020). Press, swipe, and read: Can
interactive features in ebooks facilitate engagement and learning?
Journal of Computer Assisted Learning.
https://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.12480
Reich, S., Yau, J.,
Xu, Y., Muskat, T., Campbell, J., & Cannata, D.
(2019). Digital or print? A comparison of preschooler’s comprehension,
vocabulary, and engagement from a print book and an eBook.
AERA
Open,
5(3), 1–16.
https://doi.org/10.1177/2332858419878389
Tate, T., Collins, P.,
Xu, Y., Yau, J., Krishnan, J., Prado, Y., Farkas,
G., & Warschauer, M. (2019). Visual-syntactic text format: Improving
adolescent literacy.
Scientific Studies of Reading,
23(4), 287–304.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2018.1561700
Xu, Y., Xu, D., Simpkins, S., & Warschauer, M. (2019). Does it
matter which parent is absent?: Labor migration, parenting, and
adolescent development in china.
Journal of Child and Family
Studies,
28(6), 1635–1649.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-019-01382-z
Park, Y.,
Xu, Y., Collins, P., Farkas, G., & Warschauer, M. (2018).
Scaffolding learning of language structures with visual-syntactic text
formatting.
British Journal of Educational Technology,
50(4), 1896–1912.
https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.12689
Xu, Y. (2014). Rethinking literacy education in the digital era: Digital
storybook as a learning tool for young children. China Educational
Technology, 333(10), 29–35.
Liu, X., Pan, Z., & Xu, Y. (in press). Children’s narrative
engagement in collaborative storytelling with AI versus human partners.
Technology, Mind, and Behavior.
Xu, Y., Pan, Z., Levine, J., He, K., Tran, J. E., Bustamante, A., &
Warschauer, M. (accepted). Effects of using artificial intelligence to
support children’s STEM learning from educational television programs:
Evidence from a home-based intervention. Child Development.
Conference Proceedings
Chen, J., Lu, Y., Wang, X., Zeng, H., Huang, J., Gesi, J., Xu, Y., Yao,
B., & Wang, D. (2026). Multi-agent-as-judge: Aligning
LLM-agent-based automated evaluation with multi-dimensional human
evaluation. Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the
Association for Computational Linguistics.
Girouard-Hallam, L., Dizon, L., Gelman, S., Radesky, J., & Xu, Y.
(2026). Children endorse chatbots, but prefer humans, for health-related
information. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive
Science Society, 48.
Liu, X., Xu, Y., & Wargo, J. (2026). Who gets to know? Children’s
epistemic agency in science eBook reading with AI. Proceedings of
the International Society of the Learning Sciences.
Oh, S., Girouard, L., Landersman, R., & Xu, Y. (2026). Supporting
question-asking in early science learning with AI. Proceedings of
the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in
Education.
Pan, E., Glick, D., & Xu, Y. (2026). How motivation relates to
generative AI use: A large-scale survey of mexican high school students.
Proceedings of the International Society of the Learning
Sciences.
Tran, J., Pan, E. Z., Levine, J., He, K., Jayaramu, S., Xu, Y., &
Warschauer, M. (2026). Integrating a conversational agent into PBS KIDS
media for interactive STEM learning at home. Proceedings of the
International Society of the Learning Sciences.
Chen, J., Tang, M., Lu, Y., Yao, B., Fan, E., Ma, X.,
Xu, Y., Wang, D.,
Sun, Y., & He, L. (2025). Characterizing LLM-empowered personalized
story-reading and interaction for children: Insights from
multi-stakeholder perspectives.
Proceedings of the 2025 CHI
Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3713275
He, K., Liu, X.,
Xu, Y., Bustamante, A. S., & Warschauer, M. (2025).
"Carlitos the curious caterpillar": Exploring teacher-AI co-creation of
culturally responsive educational materials for young learners.
Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Interaction
Design and Children (IDC ’25).
https://doi.org/10.1145/3713043.3727056
Li, J., Thomas, T., &
Xu, Y. (2025). Acoustic and affective dynamics
in children’s storytelling with AI and human partners.
Proceedings
of the ACM International Conference on Interaction Design and Children
(IDC ’25).
https://doi.org/10.1145/3713043.3731533
Oh, S., Zhang, C., Girouard-Hallam, L., Zhou, Z., March, H., Jayaramu,
S., &
Xu, Y. (2025). "Hey curio, can you tell me more?": Children’s
information-seeking and trust in AI.
Proceedings of the ACM
International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC
’25).
https://doi.org/10.1145/3713043.372705
(Best Short Paper Award)
Chen, J., Lu, Y., Zhang, S., Yao, B., Dong, Y.,
Xu, Y., Tang, M., Wang,
D., Sun, Y., & He, L. (2024). StorySparkQA: Expert-annotated QA
pairs with real-world knowledge for children’s story-based learning.
Proceedings of the 2024 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural
Language Processing, 17351–17370.
https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2024.emnlp-main.961
He, K., Levine, J., Cervera, K., Ojeda-Ramirez, S.,
Xu, Y., &
Warschauer, M. (2024). A home study of parent-child co-reading with a
bilingual conversational agent.
Extended Abstracts of the 2024 CHI
Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’24).
https://doi.org/10.1145/3613905.3650836
Li, Z., Thomas, T., Yu, C.-L., &
Xu, Y. (2024). "I said knight, not
night!": Children’s communication breakdowns and repairs with AI versus
human partners.
Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on
Interaction Design and Children (IDC ’24).
https://doi.org/10.1145/3628516.365939
Meng, J., Li, H., Hu, T., &
Xu, Y. (2024). The transfer deficit in
the context of social robots: A case of early spatial learning from
screen-based technology.
Proceedings of the ACM International
Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC ’24).
https://doi.org/10.1145/3628516.3659384
Sun, Y., Chen, J., Yao, B., Liu, J., Wang, D., Ma, X., Lu, Y.,
Xu, Y.,
& He, L. (2024). Exploring parent’s needs for children-centered AI
to support preschoolers’ interactive storytelling and reading
activities.
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer
Interaction,
8(CSCW2), 1–25.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3687035
Zhang, C., Liu, X., Ziska, K., Jeon, S., Yu, C.-L., &
Xu, Y. (2024).
Mathemyths: Leveraging large language models to teach mathematical
language through child-AI co-creative storytelling.
Proceedings of
the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642647
Xu, Y., He, K., Vigil, V., Ojeda-Ramirez, S., Liu, X., Levine, J.,
Cervera, K., & Warschauer, M. (2023). "Rosita reads with my family":
Developing a bilingual conversational agent to support parent-child
shared reading.
Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on
Interaction Design and Children (IDC ’23).
https://doi.org/10.1145/3585088.3589354
(Best Paper Award)
Xu, Y., Vigil, V., Bustamante, A., & Warschauer, M. (2022).
"Elinor’s talking to me!": Integrating conversational AI into children’s
science narrative programming.
Proceedings of the 2022 CHI
Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3502050
Xu, Y., Wang, D., Yu, M., Ritchie, D., Yao, B., Wu, T., Zhang, Z., Li,
T., Bradford, N., Sun, B., Hoang, T., Sang, Y., Hou, Y., Ma, X., Yang,
D., Peng, N., Yu, Z., & Warschauer, M. (2022). Fantastic questions
and where to find them: FairytaleQA— an authentic dataset for narrative
comprehension.
Association for Computational Linguistics.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.13947
Yao, B., Wang, D., Wu, T., Zhang, Z., Li, T., Yu, M., &
Xu, Y.
(2022). It is AI’s turn to ask humans a question: Question and answer
pair generation for children’s storybooks.
Association for
Computational Linguistics.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2109.03423
(Corresponding author)
Zhang, Z.,
Xu, Y., Wang, Y., Yao, B., Ritchie, D., Wu, T., Yu, M., Wang,
D., & Li, T. (2022). Storybuddy: A human-AI collaborative agent for
parent-child interactive storytelling.
Proceedings of the 2022 CHI
Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3517479
(Equally contributing first author)
Kalinowski, R.,
Xu, Y., & Salen, K. (2021). The ecological context
of preschool-aged children’s selection of media content.
Proceedings
of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445429
Xu, Y., Branham, S., Collins, P., Deng, X., & Warschauer, M. (2021).
Are current voice interfaces designed to support children’s language
development?
Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors
in Computing Systems.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445271
Xu, Y., & Warschauer, M. (2020a). A content analysis of voice-based
apps on the market for early literacy development.
Proceedings of
the 19th ACM International Conference on Interaction Design and Children
(IDC ’20).
https://doi.org/10.1145/3392063.3394418
(Best Paper Award Honorable Mention)
Xu, Y., & Warschauer, M. (2020b). "Elinor is talking to me on the
screen!" integrating conversational agents into children’s television
programming.
CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Extended Abstracts.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3334480.3383000
Xu, Y., & Warschauer, M. (2020c). Exploring young children’s
engagement in joint reading with a conversational agent.
Proceedings
of the 19th ACM International Conference on Interaction Design and
Children (IDC ’20).
https://doi.org/10.1145/3392063.3394417
Xu, Y., & Warschauer, M. (2020d). What are you talking to?:
Understanding children’s perceptions of conversational agents.
Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376416
Xu, Y., & Warschauer, M. (2020e). Wonder with elinor: Designing a
socially contingent video viewing experience.
Proceedings of the
19th ACM International Conference on Interaction Design and Children
(IDC ’20).
https://doi.org/10.1145/3397617.3398024
(Research and Design Competition Honorable Mention)
Xu, Y., & Warschauer, M. (2019). Young children’s reading and
learning with conversational agents.
CHI Conference on Human Factors
in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3290607.3299035
Xu, Y., Yau, J. C., & Reich, S. M. (2019). The added challenge of
digital reading: Exploring young children’s page turning behaviors.
Proceedings of the 2019 Conference on Interaction Design and
Children.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3311927.3323121
(Best Short Paper Award)
Book Chapters
Xu, Y., Prado, Y., Severson, R., Lovato, S., & Cassell, J. (2024).
Growing up with artificial intelligence: Implications for child
development. In D. A. Christakis & L. Hale (Eds.), Children and
screens: A handbook on digital media and the development, health, and
well-being of children and adolescents. Springer.
(in progress)
Xu, D., & Xu, Y. (2020). The ambivalence about distance learning in
higher education. In L. Perna (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of
theory and research (Vol. 35). Springer.
Warschauer, M., &
Xu, Y. (2018). Technology and equity in education.
In J. Voogt, G. Knezek, R. Christensen, & K.-W. Lai (Eds.),
International handbook of information technology in primary and
secondary education. Springer US.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53803-7_76-1
Xu, Y., & Warschauer, M. (2018). Language and digital divide. In B.
Warf (Ed.), The sage encyclopedia of the internet. SAGE.
Workshop Papers/Doctoral Consortium
Xu, Y., Zheng, Z., Wang, H., Yao, B., Ritchie, D., Wu, T., Yu, M., Wang,
D., & Li, T. (2021). Building an interactive storytelling
conversational agent through parent-AI collaboration. CUI@CSCW
Workshop: Inclusive and Collaborative Child-Facing Voice
Technologies.
Xu, Y. (2020). Using conversational agents to foster young children’s
science learning from screen media.
Proceedings of the 19th ACM
International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC
’20).
https://doi.org/10.1145/3397617.3398031
Research Reports
Xu, D., &
Xu, Y. (2019).
The promises and limits of online
higher education: Understanding how distance education affects access,
cost, and quality. American Enterprise Institute.
http://www.aei.org/publication/the-promises-and-limits-of-online-higher-education/
Public Datasets
Xu, Y., & Bradford, N. (2023).
Data on the effects of
transparency on people’s perceptions of social AI.
https://doi.org/10.7302/69h3-x918
Xu, Y., Ritchie, D., Mo, Y., & Wang, D. (2022).
FairytaleQA: An
authentic large-scale dataset for narrative comprehension.
https://github.com/uci-soe/StoryQAData
Xu, Y., & Warschauer, M. (2021).
Conversational agents for
dialogic reading. Dryad.
https://doi.org/10.7280/D10Q3P
Conference Presentations
Pan, E. Z., Levine, J., & Xu, Y. (2026). Evaluating large
language models as scoring tools for children’s responses to open-ended
vocabulary questions. Stanford Education Data Science Conference;
Poster.
Pan, E. Z., Thomas, T., Glick, D., & Xu, Y. (2026). Does access
to generative AI for learning change high school students’ academic
self-concept? Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research
Association (AERA); Symposium paper.
Xu, Y. (2026). AI and youth learning across the globe: Insights from
four large-scale surveys. Annual Meeting of the American
Educational Research Association (AERA); Symposium.
(Chair and Discussant)
Pan, Z., Liu, X., Thomas, T., & Xu, Y. (2025). Math talk in
childhood: Exploring communication patterns with AI and human
partners. Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child
Development (SRCD); Symposium paper.
Pan, Z., Thomas, T., & Xu, Y. (2025). Teaching math vocabulary
through storytelling: Comparing AI and human partners’
effectiveness. Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in
Child Development (SRCD); Symposium paper.
Xu, Y., He, K., Levine, J., Ritchie, D., Pan, Z., Bustamante, A., &
Warschauer, M. (2025). Effects of AI-enhanced television shows on
children’s science learning and verbal engagement. Biennial Meeting
of the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD); Symposium
paper.
Xu, Y., Thomas, T., & Yu, C.-L. (2025). Learning with AI or
humans: An experimental study on children’s perception of mind in AI
learning companions. Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research
in Child Development (SRCD); Symposium paper.
Oh, S., Zhang, T., & Xu, Y. (2025). Empathy or utility: Children’s
reasoning for moral consideration of AI. In Proceedings of the
Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (Vol. 47).
Pan, E. Z., Xu, Y., & Ward, L. M. (2025). Exploring associations
among AI usage, anthropomorphism, and perceived human uniqueness in
adolescents. Cognitive Science Society Conference; Poster.
Thomas, T., Takahesu-Tabori, A., Stoehr, A., Varady, C., & Xu, Y.
(2023). Does bilingual status influence automatic speech recognition
for young latino children? 14th International Symposium on
Bilingualism; Conference presentation.
Xu, Y., Levine, J., Vigil, V., Ritchie, D., Thomas, T., Barrera, C.,
Meza, M., Zhang, S., Bustamante, A., & Warschauer, M. (2023).
Conversations with media characters promote children’s science
learning from television watching. American Educational Research
Association Annual Meeting; Paper presentation.
Xu, Y., Vigil, V., Ritchie, D., & Levine, J. (2023). The impact
of socially interactive technologies on parent-child interactions and
young children’s learning. Society for Research in Child
Development; Symposium.
Xu, Y., & Warschauer, M. (2023). Using conversational artificial
intelligence to promote active and engaging learning. American
Educational Research Association Annual Meeting; Symposium.
Zhang, S., Vigil, V., Ritchie, D., Levine, J., & Xu, Y. (2023).
Interacting with a conversational agent promotes children’s science
learning. Society for Research in Child Development; Flash talk.
Wong, A., Xu, Y., & Warschauer, M. (2022). Promoting active
engagement in science learning using artificial intelligence.
Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association; Paper
presentation.
Xu, Y. (2022). Socially interactive learning with conversational
agents. Cognitive Development Society preconference workshop;
Invited talk.
Deng, X., Song, Y., & Xu, Y. (2021). Young children’s reading
with conversational agents: The role of age and language status.
Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association; Paper
presentation.
(Nominated for Best Paper Award in the Technology as an Agent of Change in Teaching and Learning (TACTL) SIG)
Vigil, V., Xu, Y., Yang, D., Bustamante, A., & Warschauer, M.
(2021). Promoting social interaction in young children’s digital
learning. Connected Learning Summit; Conference presentation.
Xu, Y. (2021). AI reading partner for language development.
Connected Learning Summit; Conference presentation.
Xu, Y., & Warschauer, M. (2021). Using conversational agents to
support science learning from animated television shows. Artificial
Intelligence in Education; Conference presentation.
Warschauer, M., & Xu, Y. (2020). Can conversational agents
support children’s learning? Conference on Educational Data
Science; Conference presentation.
Xu, Y. (2020). Using conversational agents to foster young
children’s science learning from screen media. ACM Conference on
Interaction Design; Children; Doctoral Consortium.
Xu, Y., Hoang, T., Sun, B., & Warschauer, M. (2020). What are
you talking to?: Understanding children’s perceptions towards
conversational agents. Annual Meeting of the American Educational
Research Association; Paper accepted.
(Conference canceled)
Xu, Y., Lee, H., Bautista, S., & Warschauer, M. (2020).
Examining the effect of a conversational agent as a reading
partner. Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research
Association; Paper accepted.
(Conference canceled)
Collins, P., Tate, T., Xu, Y., Krishnan, J., Prado, Y., Yau, J., Farkas,
G., & Warschauer, M. (2019). Visual syntactic text formatting:
Influences on teacher practices, student achievement, and student
engagement. Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research
Association; Paper presentation.
Umarji, O., Xu, Y., Zargar, E., Yu, R., Yang, M., Day, S., & Connor,
C. (2019). Opening the black box: Log analyses of e-book engagement
and vocabulary growth. Annual Meeting of the American Educational
Research Association; Paper presentation.
Xu, Y., Prado, Y., Collins, P., & Warschauer, M. (2019).
Effective teaching in the digital classroom: A mixed-method study of
middle school english language arts classes. Annual Meeting of the
American Educational Research Association; Poster.
Xu, Y., & Warschauer, M. (2019). Conversational agents as
educational video co-viewers for young children. Connected Learning
Summit; Paper presentation.
Xu, Y., Yau, J., & Reich, S. (2019a). Press, swipe, and read:
Can interactive features in e-books facilitate engagement and
learning? Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research
Association; Poster.
Xu, Y., Yau, J., & Reich, S. (2019b). The added challenge of
eBook reading: Exploring children’s page-turning behaviors.
Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development; Paper
presentation.
Yau, J. C., Krishnan, J., Xu, Y., Tate, T., Farkas, G., Collins, P.,
& Warschauer, M. (2019). Better together: How teacher
collaboration supports implementation and student learning during a
large-scale technology intervention. Annual Meeting of the American
Educational Research Association; Paper presentation.
Yau, J. C., Xu, Y., Prado, Y., Farkas, G., Collins, P., &
Warschauer, M. (2019). Factors influencing students’ preferences for
reading digitally. Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in
Child Development; Poster.
Umarji, O., Xu, Y., Yu, R. Z., Zargar, E., Day, S., & Connor, C.
(2018). E-book affordances: An intervention for digitally
scaffolding young readers. Digital Learning in the Humanities;
Beyond Symposium; Paper presentation.
Krishnan, J., Tate, T., Yau, J., Xu, Y., Prado, Y., Collins, P., Farkas,
G., & Warschauer, M. (2018). Digital scaffolding for english
language arts. Institute of Education Sciences Principal
Investigators’ Meeting; Poster.
Xu, Y., Yau, J., & Reich, S. (2018a). Reading with hotspots:
Exploring young children’s haptic engagement with touchscreen
stories. American Psychological Association Annual Convention;
Poster.
Xu, Y., Yau, J., & Reich, S. (2018b). Tablet for independent
reading?: Exploring young children’s page navigation and story
comprehension. American Psychological Association: Technology,
Mind,; Society; Poster.
Xu, Y., Yau, J., & Reich, S. (2018c). Understanding preschool
children’s engagement and learning with interactive ebooks. Annual
Meeting of the American Educational Research Association; Paper
presentation.
Xu, Y., Yau, J., Warschauer, M., & Collins, P. (2018). Examining
the role of teacher efficacy in the implementation of a large-scale
technology-based intervention. Annual Meeting of the American
Educational Research Association; Paper presentation.
(Nominated for Best Paper Award in the Technology as an Agent of Change in Teaching and Learning (TACTL) SIG)
Xu, Y., Xu, D., Simpkins, S., & Warschauer, M. (2017). Does it
matter which parent is absent?: Labor migration, parenting, and
adolescent development in china. Annual Meeting of the American
Educational Research Association; Paper presentation.
Zhou, N., Vu, V., Xu, Y., & Warschauer, M. (2017). Enhancing
teachers’ self-efficacy in integrating digital storytelling in the
classroom. Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research
Association; Poster.
SERVICE
Professional Service
I serve as the chair and program chair of AERA Advanced Technologies for Learning SIG
I serve as a reviewer for the following journals and conferences:
- Child Development Perspectives
- Child Development
- Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
- Applied Artificial Intelligence
- Cognitive Science
- Frontiers in Psychology
- Journal of Family Psychology
- AERA Open
- Journal of Computer Assisted Learning
- British Journal of Educational Technology
- Educational Researcher
- Research in Higher Education
- ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing
- ACM Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC)
- ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, (DIS)
- ACM Conference on Computer Collaborative Work (CSCW)
- American Educational Research Association
- American Psychological Association
- Technology, Society, and Mind conference
I serve on the program committee for ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing
I serve on the reviewer panel for the following funding agencies/programs:
- NSF Research on Emerging Technologies for Teaching and Learning (RETTL) Program; Research on Innovative Technologies for Enhanced Learning (RITEL); EDU Core Research (ECR:Core)
- Schmidt Futures; Templeton Foundation
University Service
2024-2025 Committee member, HGSE AI Working Group
2023-2024 Committee member, U-M Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research Committee
2023-2024 PhD Steering Committee
2023 Mentor, Transfer Bridges Program
2022- Mentor, University of Michigan Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program
2017-2022 Mentor, UC Irvine Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program
2017-2022 Mentor, UC Irvine Summer Undergraduate Research Program
2020 Mentor, UC Irvine Competitive Edge Program
2016-2019 Coordinator, UC Irvine Digital Learning Lab Seminar
2018 Conference Committee, Digital Learning in the Humanities and Beyond
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
2024 Instructor, AI and the Developing Child, Harvard University
2023 Instructor, Digital Media, AI, and Child Development, University of Michigan
2023 Instructor, Foundations of Teaching and Learning, University of Michigan
2023 Instructor, How People Learn, University of Michigan
2021 Guest Lecture. EDUC 212 Literacy and Technology, UC Irvine
2020 Guest Lecture. EDUC 30 21st Century Literacies, UC Irvine
2020 Instructor. R Workshop for Education Research
2020 Instructor. EDUC 198 Designing Socially Interactive Technologies
2019 Instructor. EDUC 199 Conversational Agents: Design and Evaluation
2019 Guest Lecture. EDUC 212 Literacy and Technology, UC Irvine
2019 Instructor. R Workshop for Education Research
2019 Guest Lecture. EDUC 30 21st Century Literacies, UC Irvine
2018 Graduate Teaching Assistant. EDUC 358 Media and Information Literacy, UC Irvine
LANGUAGES
Native/bilingual proficiency in English, Mandarin, and Cantonese
