Items

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  Measured, Not Heard: AI-Generated Feedback and Year 6 Girls’ Self-Perception as Public Speakers

  James Porter 2026

  This action research study explored how Year 6 girls interpret and respond to AI-generated feedback on public speaking, and what impact this had on their positive self-perception as speakers. Conducted over a thirteen-week autumn term in a London girls’ junior school, the inquiry was embedded within an existing oracy curriculum and centred on three speaking tasks supported by Microsoft Speaker Progress. A mixed-methods design combined three-timepoint self-perception questionnaires, AI-generated metric reports and stored recordings, think-aloud protocols during rehearsal, focus groups conducted before, during, and after the intervention, teacher field notes, and reflexive journalling. Rather than producing a straightforward narrative of confidence gain or loss, the findings present a more complex and ethically significant picture. AI feedback did not operate as a discrete intervention acting uniformly upon pupils; instead, it was encountered within a wider feedback ecology in which it interacted with teacher feedback, peer responses, prior experience, emotional safety, and pupils’ own developing self-judgements. Within this ecology, AI feedback sometimes supported performance, sometimes reduced emotional risk, and sometimes introduced uncertainty, meaning its influence on self-perception was partial, conditional, and relational. Importantly, the quantitative and qualitative strands did not converge neatly: questionnaire items linked to understanding, preparation, and knowing how to improve showed clearer movement than affective items relating to confidence and nervousness. Read as analytically productive, this divergence helps explain why clarity and competence did not reliably translate into confidence, and why shifts in self-perception were not always captured by quantitative measures alone.
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  Show What You Know: How Girls’ Academic Confidence Increases with Multiple and Differentiated Ways of Sharing What They Learned

  Julie Haines (2020) 2020

  This action research project investigated the hypothesis that when elementary school girls are able to choose from a menu of differentiated assessments their academic confidence increases and their assessment stress decreases. In this study, students in grades two, three, and four in an all-girls’ independent school in the United States were given choices in the assessment process. Students used a Likert scale to rate their academic confidence in the topic of a STEAM mini-unit at the beginning and end of instruction. At the conclusion of each mini-unit, students chose their preferred method of assessment to show what they had learned—show what you know. The assessment choices were: creating a labeled drawing, building a model, taking a multiple choice test, recording a Flipgrid, taking a Kahoot quiz, or other (student’s choice). In addition, the parents of the students provided feedback and insights on the academic confidence and the learning achieved by their daughters. The study demonstrates that providing students with “voice and choice” from a variety of assessment methods may contribute to increased academic confidence and improved learning outcomes.
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  The Algorithmic Muse: Using AI to Support Divergent Thinking and Creativity in Year 8 Girls’ Digital Design Problem Solving

  Kerry Daud 2026

  Current research and literature in girls’ education identify a trend where the true creative potential of female students remains hidden. Perfectionism and the pressure to conform often mask their actual abilities, creating a gap between what they are capable of and what they express. This action research project addressed this disparity within a Year 8 digital design cohort at St Margaret’s Anglican Girls School. The study investigated whether an anonymised, AI-mediated space could mitigate a reluctance to take academic risks and foster divergent thinking. Over a semester, I implemented five divergent thinking challenges where students engaged with a custom AI chatbot and text-to-image generation as creative collaborators. This research found that the anonymised AI environment functioned as a psychologically safe space and supported students to improve their creative potential. This research offers a scalable pedagogical framework for girls’ education, demonstrating how generative AI can be leveraged to dismantle gendered barriers to risk-taking and empower girls to reclaim their creative confidence.
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  Think, Reflect, Succeed: Using Reflective Thinking Routines to Develop Agency in Year 8 Girls in the French Classroom

  Tara Fennell (2025) 2025

  This action research project explored how 12–13 year-old girls engaged in a reflective thinking routine, which aimed at increasing their agency in French lessons. The research was conducted with a group of 14 students at an all-girls independent school in London, England. In this project, students added their questions to a physical question wall, then explored answers and related ideas together. Their discussions supported aspects such as consolidation of complex grammar, writing feedback, and topic revision. Data collected were qualitative in nature and captured by questionnaires, interviews, my field journal, lesson observations, artefacts, and student written work. The results indicated that use of a thinking routine developed individual question competence, peer questions enhanced their classmates’ learning, the question wall provided potential for stretch and challenge, and the transactional nature of the student-teacher dynamic shifted over the ten weeks of the project. The students articulated the positive impact of the project on their sense of agency and discussed how thinking routines could be used moving forward. The effectiveness of the thinking routine with other year groups and other academic subjects can next be ascertained.
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  Who Controls the Learning? Examining the Impact of an Autodidactic Framework in a Grade 12 Girls’ Atmospheric Science Class

  Eric A. Walters (2023) 2023

  A 21st-century education must move beyond a student acquiring a body of knowledge presented through direct instruction. To find workforce success, students must become adept problem solvers, and, as such, they need to develop the capacity to independently direct their own learning. (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2022). Future employees will need to be project managers, expected to solve problems they have never seen before. They will not be asked to read a textbook chapter, then answer a series of questions. In my experience as a high school science teacher, students often struggle when they are first introduced to self-directed learning. In this action research project, I investigated if a self-directed learning framework would assist students in strengthening their autonomy through autodidactic experiences. The project was conducted over an eight-week period with students in my senior elective, Atmospheric Science. For the unit, “Introduction to Weather Forecasting,” students were given a learning pathway that outlined all topics they needed to master, along with a set of learning activities to be completed to support the learning. A “Wakelet” playlist with multimodal resources allowed students to develop their knowledge and understanding; students demonstrating mastery by completing activities that used real-time weather data. As a summative assessment, students synthesized their knowledge by researching and producing a short, video weather forecast for a selected city. In my mixed-methods research design, I implemented a self-directed learning assessment and metacognitive awareness inventory. Student reflections, classroom observations, focus groups, and contemporaneous comments also helped me understand changes in learning patterns. Data analysis suggested that students ended up in two camps: those with a fixed mindset who struggled with self-directed learning and those with a growth mindset who excelled with project planning. My results suggested that self-directed learning experiences must be carefully balanced with the students’ desire for collaborative work during learning. Furthermore, there must be an ongoing conversation between teacher and student about how students might understand their learning personas and thereby build agency in all types of learning.