Faculty and Students from the School of Education Present at the 2026 AERA Annual Meeting

Recently, Professor CHIANG Fengkuang, Vice Dean of the School of Education, Professor XU Binyan, Associate Professor WANG Shuai, postdoctoral researcher GAO Xin, doctoral students FENG Shuo, JIANG Zhujun, and WU Xinyi, as well as master’s students YU Yang and CHEN Xi, attended and presented at the 2026 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). The 2026 Annual Meeting was held from April 8 to 12 in Los Angeles, California, under the theme “Unforgetting Histories and Imagining Futures: Constructing a New Vision for Education Research.” As the world’s largest and most influential academic gathering in the field of education, this year’s conference attracted approximately 15,000 scholars and researchers from around the globe and featured more than 2,500 academic sessions.

Associate Professor WANG Shuai’s Research Team

Associate Professor WANG Shuai led his team in delivering six research presentations at the AERA Annual Meeting. Their work covered topics including artificial intelligence and the digital transformation of education, educational measurement and evaluation, educational equity and student development, and teacher professional growth. These presentations reflected the team’s sustained research efforts in interdisciplinary areas. For example, the team’s studies on AIoT and generative artificial intelligence focused on teachers’ technological perceptions, usage behaviors, and quality of technology integration during the digital transformation of education. The findings offer important insights for optimizing professional development support for teachers and promoting the appropriate application of artificial intelligence in authentic teaching contexts. The team’s research on college transition programs focused on students admitted through special admission plans at universities, examining how transition support programs promote student adaptation and development through mechanisms such as academic readiness, sociocultural readiness, and engagement. The study provides empirical evidence for universities to improve student support systems and advance educational equity.

During the conference, Associate Professor WANG Shuai also participated in in-depth exchanges with editors-in-chief of international journals and scholars in his capacity as Editor-in-Chief of the SSCI-indexed journal “Distance Education”. Discussions focused on journal development, academic quality enhancement, international collaboration, and future research directions. These exchanges further expanded the School’s connections within the international academic publishing and education research communities and laid an important foundation for future collaboration.

Postdoctoral researcher GAO Xin presented research findings on educational equity, student development, and professional support for teachers at an AERA paper session and roundtable forum. At the paper session “Navigating Transitions: Equity, Belonging, and the First-Year Experience,” GAO Spresented a study titled “Bridging the Gap for Disadvantaged Students: How College Transition Program Influences Academic Performance through Readiness and Engagement.” Focusing on students admitted through special admission plans at top Chinese universities and drawing on longitudinal student data, the study examined how college transition programs influence students’ academic development through college readiness and classroom engagement. The research highlights that educational equity is not only reflected in access to higher education, but also in whether students can continue to participate, adapt effectively, and achieve academic growth after entering university.

At the roundtable forum “The Work of Becoming: Growth, Identity, and Professional Fulfillment in Education,” GAO presented a study titled “Unlocking Teaching Satisfaction: The Role of Faculty Growth Mindset, Person-Organization Fit, and Demographic Nuances.” Based on survey data from university faculty members, the study explored the relationships among faculty growth mindset, person-organization fit, and teaching satisfaction. From the perspective of interactions between teachers’ psychological traits and organizational environments, the study analyzed the mechanisms shaping university teachers’ teaching satisfaction, offering useful implications for optimizing faculty development support systems, cultivating a positive organizational culture, and enhancing teachers’ engagement in teaching.

Doctoral student FENG Shuo also presented research findings on the intersection of technology, teaching, and learning at an AERA roundtable and paper session. The roundtable was organized by the Technology-Based Environments Special Interest Group under Division C, “Learning and Instruction,” under the theme “Designing Inclusive and Human-Centered Learning Technologies.” FENG presented a study titled “Examining Factors Influencing the Teachers’ AIoT Technology Integration Quality through the COM-B Model and ICAP Framework.” Focusing on artificial intelligence of things as an emerging educational technology, the study integrated the COM-B model and the ICAP framework to examine how teachers’ capability, opportunity, and motivation influence the quality of AIoT technology integration. The findings provide empirical evidence for understanding mechanisms of teachers’ technology integration and advancing the digital transformation of education.

At a paper session under Division K, “Teaching and Teacher Education,” FENG presented a study titled “Rural-Urban Teachers’ Differences in Perceptions and Usage of Applying Generative AI in Teaching Practices.” Based on large-scale teacher survey data, the study analyzed differences between rural and urban teachers in their perceptions and use of generative AI in teaching. It found both shared characteristics and distinct influencing mechanisms among rural and urban teachers. The study responds to important concerns about educational equity, teacher support, and context-specific interventions amid the rapid development of AI applications in education.

Professor CHIANG Fengkuang’s Research Team

During the conference, Professor JIANG Fengguang’s team presented research in the fields of AI in education and STEM education, receiving positive feedback from international scholars. Professor JIANG was also invited to participate in receptions hosted by schools of education at various universities, roundtable forums for journal editors-in-chief, and poster sessions organized by research universities in the United States. He engaged in extensive exchanges with scholars from Columbia University, Stanford University, the University of California system, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, The Education University of Hong Kong, and the National Institute of Education at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, among others, further expanding the School’s international collaboration network. Through exchanges with young scholars and former students from around the world, Professor JIANG was deeply impressed by the significance of academic inheritance and talent cultivation. From the perspective of academic themes, AI-enabled education remained one of the most prominent research topics at this year’s conference. Countries varied significantly in their approaches to promoting AI in education, with both openness and caution reflected in policy and institutional reform. Participation in the conference further enhanced the visibility of the School of Education within the international education research community and laid a solid foundation for deepening future international research collaboration.

Doctoral student JIANG Zhujun was invited to deliver an Ed Talk and present an academic poster in Division C — Learning and Instruction, Section 2a: Cognitive and Motivational Processes. Her presentation was titled “Eye Tracking and Stimulated Recall Evidence of Young Readers’ Metacognitive Processes in Science Picture Book Reading.” The study adopted a multi-source evidence design combining eye tracking, stimulated recall interviews, and verbal explanations to characterize fifth-grade students’ metacognitive knowledge, experiences, and skills in science picture book reading. The findings indicate that metacognitive experience serves as a key mediator linking knowledge and behavior; feelings of fluency can easily lead to a cognitive illusion of “high confidence but low comprehension”; feelings of confusion can trigger deep cross-representational integration; and interest may have a double-edged effect. The study further points out that the same eye-tracking indicators may correspond to very different cognitive processes, suggesting that single-source quantitative data alone may not fully reveal children’s authentic learning states.

Doctoral student WU Xinyi participated in the roundtable forum “Virtual Communication in Higher Education” with a presentation titled “Designing AI Education Ecosystem Indicators in Higher Education: A Delphi and AHP Approach.” The study showcased the latest research findings of Professor CHIANG Fengkuang’s team in evaluating AI education ecosystems in higher education. Drawing on educational ecosystem theory and multi-level structure theory, the study developed and validated an indicator system comprising five first-level indicators, 13 second-level indicators, and 42 third-level indicators through two rounds of Delphi expert consultation and the analytic hierarchy process. The presentation also reported on the construction of an ecological maturity model. Building on the framework, the study further proposed a quantitative model of AI education ecosystem maturity in higher education with five stages: foundational, application, development, integration, and leadership. This model enhances the practical guiding value of the theoretical indicator system.

Participating Master’s Students

Master’s student YU Yang participated in the roundtable forum “Leadership Orientation Cross Diverse Contexts,” where he presented a study titled “How Does Distributed Leadership Enhance Teacher Innovativeness? The Mediating Roles of Teacher Self-Efficacy and Collaboration.” The study was completed under the supervision of Associate Professor LIU Huacong and explored the mechanisms through which principals’ distributed leadership influences teacher innovativeness. Using the Shanghai teacher sample from the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2018 and structural equation modeling as the analytical method, the study found that distributed leadership has a significant positive effect on teacher innovativeness. This effect operates both directly and indirectly through parallel and chain mediation pathways involving teacher self-efficacy and teacher collaboration. Specifically, distributed leadership indirectly enhances teacher innovativeness by strengthening teachers’ self-efficacy and promoting teacher collaboration. At the same time, teacher self-efficacy and collaboration form a chain relationship: enhanced teacher self-efficacy further encourages teachers to participate in collaboration, ultimately contributing to teacher innovativeness. The study reveals the internal mechanisms through which distributed leadership stimulates teacher innovativeness through both psychological and relational pathways in a non-Western education system. It also provides empirical evidence from China for the application of distributed leadership theory in cross-cultural contexts.

Master’s student CHEN Xi participated in a roundtable on collaborative learning, where she presented a study titled “Simulating Children’s Emergent Roles in Collaborative Learning through Multi-Agent Systems.” The study was completed under the supervision of Associate Professor CAO Lu. Based on empirical data from collaborative learning in real primary school classrooms, the study systematically identified and analyzed children’s naturally emerging roles in group tasks, including knowledge constructors, idea contributors, coordinators, and reflective evaluators. It also revealed how key factors such as gender, academic performance, and peer friendships influence role distribution. Building on these findings, the study constructed a multi-agent simulation system based on large language models to simulate children’s collaborative interactions and role performance. Empirical validation showed that the system was consistent with real classroom data in dimensions such as role distribution and language style, effectively reproducing the role distribution characteristics of children’s natural collaboration. The study offers a new method for modeling collaborative learning processes and provides innovative tool support for teachers to understand group dynamics and optimize classroom collaborative learning design.

The 2026 AERA Annual Meeting not only provided high-level opportunities for academic exchange, but also further expanded international collaboration networks in education research and enhanced the visibility of the School of Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University within the global education research community. The 2027 AERA Annual Meeting will be held in Toronto, Canada, and is expected to continue serving as an important academic exchange platform for education researchers worldwide.

Contributors by WU Xinyi, WANG Shuai, JIANG Zhujun, YU Yang, CHEN Xi, etc. Reviewed by CHIANG Fengkuang

Edited by WU Xiuhuan

Proofread by CHEN Ruoxi