Research Study Repository
A comprehensive collection of academic research on generative AI in preK12 education organized into three categories:
- Descriptive - Research that describes how generative AI is being used in classrooms, schools, or districts or how products are designed and built.
- Impact (includes RCT + Quasi-Experimental) - Studies that test how well something works including but not limited to randomly dividing people into groups and comparing the results.
- Review - Studies that combine and summarize all the research on a specific genAI topic to find patterns and answers.
We aim to include all research in the above categories on generative AI in preK12 education in the US. As research diverges from genAI for preK12 in the US - such as machine learning, education systems beyond preK12, or studies conducted outside the US - inclusion in the repository is based on relevance to our target audiences:
- Superintendents, state, and federal K12 leaders
- Education support organizations (unions, parent groups, etc.)
- Leadership and product teams at technology companies
- Academic researchers
- Global education leaders
The Research Repository includes pre-published works but does not include journalism on AI for education.
Research synthesis is AI-generated, human reviewed. Updated 05/2025.
Showing 91 - 120 of 580 results
Examining the Role of LLM-Driven Interactions on Attention and Cognitive Engagement in Virtual Classrooms
Süleyman Özdel, Can Sarpkaya, Efe Bozkir, Hong Gao, Enkelejda Kasneci. (05/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Communicating / Social Tools, Learning – Student Support
Who is the user? Student
Which age? Post-Secondary
Why use AI? Outcomes – Other Academic, Outcomes – Differentiation
Study design: Impact – Quasi–experimentalVTutor for High-Impact Tutoring at Scale: Managing Engagement and Real-Time Multi-Screen Monitoring with P2P Connections
Eason Chen, Xinyi Tang, Aprille Xi, Chenyu Lin, Conrad Borchers, Jionghao Lin, Shivang Gupta, Kenneth R Koedinger. (05/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Communicating / Social Tools, Learning – Student Support, Teaching – Instructional Materials, Teaching – Assessment and Feedback
Who is the user? Student
Which age? Elementary (PK5), Middle School (6-8), High School (9-12), Post-Secondary
Why use AI? Efficiency, Outcomes – Literacy, Outcomes – Numeracy, Outcomes – Other Academic, Outcomes – Differentiation
Study design: Descriptive – Implementation and Use, Descriptive – Product DevelopmentLECTOR: Summarizing E-book Reading Content for Personalized Student Support
Erwin López, Cheng Tang, Valdemar _vábensk_, Fumiya Okubo, Atsushi Shimada. (05/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Analyzing, Learning – Student Support
Who is the user? Student, Educator
Which age? Post-Secondary
Why use AI? Outcomes – Other Academic, Outcomes – Differentiation
Study design: Descriptive – Product Development, Impact – Quasi–experimentalMultimodal Assessment of Classroom Discourse Quality: A Text-Centered Attention-Based Multi-Task Learning Approach
Ruikun Hou, Babette Bühler, Tim Fütterer, Efe Bozkir, Peter Gerjets, Ulrich Trautwein, Enkelejda Kasneci. (05/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Analyzing, Teaching – Professional Learning
Who is the user? Educator
Which age? Middle School (6-8), High School (9-12)
Why use AI? Efficiency, Outcomes – Differentiation
Study design: Descriptive – Implementation and UseHuman-AI Collaboration or Academic Misconduct? Measuring AI Use in Student Writing Through Stylometric Evidence
Eduardo Araujo Oliveira, Madhavi Mohoni, Sonsoles López-Pernas, Mohammed Saqr. (05/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Analyzing, Teaching – Assessment and Feedback
Who is the user? Educator
Which age? High School (9-12), Post-Secondary
Why use AI? Outcomes – Literacy, Outcomes – Durable Skills
Study design: Descriptive – Implementation and UseLeveraging Graph Retrieval-Augmented Generation to Support Learners' Understanding of Knowledge Concepts in MOOCs
Mohamed Abdelmagied, Mohamed Amine Chatti, Shoeb Joarder, Qurat Ul Ain, Rawaa Alatrash. (05/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Learning – Student Support
Who is the user? Student
Which age? Post-Secondary, Adult
Why use AI? Outcomes – Differentiation
Study design: Descriptive – Implementation and UsePredicting Student Dropout Risk With A Dual-Modal Abrupt Behavioral Changes Approach
Jiabei Cheng, Zhen-Qun Yang, Jiannong Cao, Yu Yang, Xinzhe Zheng. (05/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Analyzing, Teaching – Assessment and Feedback
Who is the user? Educator
Which age? High School (9-12)
Why use AI? Efficiency, Outcomes – Other Academic, Outcomes – Differentiation
Study design: Impact – Quasi–experimentalIllusions of Intimacy: Emotional Attachment and Emerging Psychological Risks in Human-AI Relationships
Minh Duc Chu, Patrick Gerard, Kshitij Pawar, Charles Bickham, Kristina Lerman. (05/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Communicating / Social Tools
Who is the user? Others
Which age?
Why use AI? Other
Study design: Descriptive – Implementation and Use, Impact – Quasi–experimentalAutomated Bias Assessment in AI-Generated Educational Content Using CEAT Framework
Jingyang Peng, Wenyuan Shen, Jiarui Rao, and Jionghao Lin. (05/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Analyzing, Teaching – Instructional Materials
Who is the user? Educator
Which age? Post-Secondary
Why use AI? Efficiency, Outcomes – Differentiation
Study design: Descriptive – Product DevelopmentBeyond Retrieval: Joint Supervision and Multimodal Document Ranking for Textbook Question Answering
Hessa Alawwad, Usman Naseem, Areej Alhothali, Ali Alkhathlan, Amani Jamal. (05/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Learning – Student Support, Teaching – Instructional Materials
Who is the user? Educator
Which age? Middle School (6-8), High School (9-12)
Why use AI? Outcomes – Other Academic
Study design: Descriptive – Product DevelopmentFrom First Draft to Final Insight: A Multi-Agent Approach for Feedback Generation
Jie Cao, Chloe Qianhui Zhao, Xian Chen, Shuman Wang, Christian Schunn, Kenneth R. Koedinger, Jionghao Lin. (05/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Teaching – Assessment and Feedback
Who is the user? Educator
Which age? Post-Secondary
Why use AI? Efficiency, Outcomes – Other Academic
Study design: Impact – Quasi–experimentalKCluster: An LLM-based Clustering Approach to Knowledge Component Discovery
Yumou Wei, Paulo Carvalho, John Stamper. (05/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Analyzing, Teaching – Assessment and Feedback
Who is the user? Educator
Which age? Elementary (PK5), Middle School (6-8), High School (9-12), Post-Secondary
Why use AI? Efficiency, Outcomes – Other Academic
Study design: Descriptive – Product Development, Impact – Quasi–experimentalTowards Actionable Pedagogical Feedback: A Multi-Perspective Analysis of Mathematics Teaching and Tutoring Dialogue
Jannatun Naim, Jie Cao, Fareen Tasneem, Jennifer Jacobs, Brent Milne, Tamara Sumner, James Martin. (05/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Teaching – Assessment and Feedback
Who is the user? Educator
Which age? Elementary (PK5), Middle School (6-8), High School (9-12)
Why use AI? Outcomes – Numeracy, Outcomes – Differentiation
Study design: Descriptive – Implementation and UseExploring LLM-Generated Feedback for Economics Essays: How Teaching Assistants Evaluate and Envision Its Use
Xinyi Lu, Aditya Mahesh, Zejia Shen, Mitchell Dudley, Larissa Sano, Xu Wang. (05/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Teaching – Assessment and Feedback
Who is the user? Educator
Which age? Post-Secondary
Why use AI? Efficiency, Outcomes – Other Academic, Outcomes – Differentiation
Study design: Descriptive – Implementation and UseFrom Problem-Solving to Teaching Problem-Solving: Aligning LLMs with Pedagogy using Reinforcement Learning
David Dinucu-Jianu, Jakub Macina, Nico Daheim, Ido Hakimi, Iryna Gurevych, Mrinmaya Sachan. (05/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Learning – Student Support, Teaching – Instructional Materials
Who is the user? Student, Educator
Which age? Elementary (PK5), Middle School (6-8), High School (9-12), Post-Secondary
Why use AI? Outcomes – Numeracy, Outcomes – Differentiation, Outcomes – Durable Skills
Study design: Descriptive – Product Development, Impact – Quasi–experimentalChildren's Mental Models of AI Reasoning: Implications for AI Literacy Education
Aayushi Dangol, Robert Wolfe, Runhua Zhao, JaeWon Kim, Trushaa Ramanan, Katie Davis, Julie A. Kientz. (05/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Teaching – Instructional Materials
Who is the user? Student, Educator
Which age? Elementary (PK5), Middle School (6-8)
Why use AI? Outcomes – Literacy, Outcomes – Durable Skills
Study design: Descriptive – Implementation and UseMSA at BEA 2025 Shared Task: Disagreement-Aware Instruction Tuning for Multi-Dimensional Evaluation of LLMs as Math Tutors
Baraa Hikal, Mohamed Basem, Islam Oshallah, Ali Hamdi. (05/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Analyzing, Learning – Student Support
Who is the user? Others
Which age? Elementary (PK5), Middle School (6-8), High School (9-12)
Why use AI? Outcomes – Numeracy, Outcomes – Differentiation
Study design: Descriptive – Product DevelopmentSlideItRight: Using AI to Find Relevant Slides and Provide Feedback for Open-Ended Questions
Chloe Qianhui Zhao, Jie Cao, Eason Chen, Kenneth R. Koedinger, Jionghao Lin. (05/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Learning – Student Support, Teaching – Assessment and Feedback
Who is the user? Student
Which age? Post-Secondary
Why use AI? Outcomes – Other Academic, Outcomes – Differentiation
Study design: Impact – Quasi–experimentalLLMs to Support K-12 Teachers in Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: An AI Literacy Example
Jiayi Wang, Ruiwei Xiao, Xinying Hou, Hanqi Li, Ying Jui Tseng, John Stamper, Ken Koedinger. (05/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Teaching – Instructional Materials, Teaching – Professional Learning
Who is the user? Educator
Which age? Elementary (PK5), Middle School (6-8), High School (9-12)
Why use AI? Efficiency, Outcomes – Literacy, Outcomes – Differentiation
Study design: Descriptive – Implementation and Use, Descriptive – Product DevelopmentNotebookLM: An LLM with RAG for active learning and collaborative tutoring
Eugenio Tufino. (04/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Learning – Student Support, Teaching – Instructional Materials
Who is the user? Student, Educator
Which age? High School (9-12), Post-Secondary
Why use AI? Efficiency, Outcomes – Other Academic, Outcomes – Differentiation
Study design: Descriptive – Implementation and Use"All Roads Lead to ChatGPT”: How Generative Al is Eroding Social Interactions and Student Learning Communities
Irene Hou, Owen Man, Kate Hamilton, Srishty Muthusekaran, Jeffin Johnykutty, Leili Zadeh, Stephen MacNeil. (04/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Communicating / Social Tools, Learning – Student Support
Who is the user? Student
Which age? Post-Secondary
Why use AI? Outcomes – Durable Skills
Study design: Descriptive – Implementation and UseExploring Families' Use and Mediation of Generative AI: A Multi-User Perspective
Shirley Zhang, Bengisu Cagiltay, Jennica Li, Dakota Sullivan, Bilge Mutlu, Heather Kirkorian, Kassem Fawaz. (04/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Communicating / Social Tools, Learning – Student Support
Who is the user? Parent/Caregiver
Which age? Elementary (PK5), Middle School (6-8), High School (9-12)
Why use AI? Outcomes – Social Emotional
Study design: Descriptive – Implementation and UseGlocalizing Generative AI in Education for the Global South: The Design Case of 21st Century Teacher Educator AI for Ghana
Matthew Nyaaba. (04/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Learning – Student Support, Teaching – Instructional Materials
Who is the user? Student, Educator
Which age? Post-Secondary
Why use AI? Outcomes – Literacy, Outcomes – Numeracy, Outcomes – Other Academic, Outcomes – Differentiation, Reimagined Schooling
Study design: Descriptive – Implementation and Use, Descriptive – Product DevelopmentSynthesizing High-Quality Programming Tasks with LLM-based Expert and Student Agents
Manh Hung Nguyen, Victor-Alexandru Padurean, Alkis Gotovos, Sebastian Tschiatschek, Adish Singla. (04/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Teaching – Instructional Materials
Who is the user? Educator
Which age? Post-Secondary
Why use AI? Efficiency, Outcomes – Other Academic
Study design: Descriptive – Product DevelopmentAI-University: An LLM-based platform for instructional alignment to scientific classrooms
Mostafa Faghih Shojaei, Rahul Gulati, Benjamin A. Jasperson, Shangshang Wang, Simone Cimolato, Dangli Cao, Willie Neiswanger, and Krishna Garikipati. (04/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Learning – Student Support, Teaching – Instructional Materials
Who is the user? Educator
Which age? Post-Secondary
Why use AI? Efficiency, Outcomes – Other Academic, Outcomes – Differentiation
Study design: Descriptive – Implementation and Use, Descriptive – Product DevelopmentSTRIVE: A Think & Improve Approach with Iterative Refinement for Enhancing Question Quality Estimation
Aniket Deroy, Subhankar Maity. (04/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Teaching – Assessment and Feedback
Who is the user? Educator
Which age? Elementary (PK5), Middle School (6-8), High School (9-12)
Why use AI? Efficiency, Outcomes – Other Academic
Study design: Descriptive – Product DevelopmentSingle-Agent vs. Multi-Agent LLM Strategies for Automated Student Reflection Assessment
Gen Li, Li Chen, Cheng Tang, Valdemar Svabensky, Daisuke Deguchi, Takayoshi Yamashita, Atsushi Shimada. (04/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Analyzing, Teaching – Assessment and Feedback
Who is the user? Educator
Which age? Post-Secondary
Why use AI? Efficiency, Outcomes – Other Academic
Study design: Descriptive – Implementation and UseBeyond Tools: Generative AI as Epistemic Infrastructure in Education
Bodong Chen. (04/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Teaching – Instructional Materials, Teaching – Assessment and Feedback
Who is the user? Educator
Which age? Post-Secondary
Why use AI? Efficiency, Outcomes – Durable Skills, Reimagined Schooling
Study design: Descriptive – Implementation and UseUnderstanding Learner-LLM Chatbot Interactions and the Impact of Prompting Guidelines
Cansu Koyuturk, Emily Theophilou, Sabrina Patania, Gregor Donabauer, Andrea Martinenghi, Chiara Antico, Alessia Telari, Alessia Testa, Sathya Bursic, Franca Garzotto, Davinia Hernandez-Leo, Udo Kruschwitz, Davide Taibi, Simona Amenta, Martin Ruskov, Dimitri Ognibene. (04/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Learning – Student Support
Who is the user? Student
Which age? High School (9-12), Post-Secondary
Why use AI? Outcomes – Durable Skills
Study design: Descriptive – Implementation and Use, Impact – Quasi–experimentalCPG-EVAL: A Multi-tiered Benchmark for Evaluating the Chinese Pedagogical Grammar Competence of Large Language Models
Dong Wang. (04/2025). arXiv.
What is the application? Analyzing, Teaching – Assessment and Feedback
Who is the user? Educator, Others
Which age? Post-Secondary
Why use AI? Outcomes – Other Academic
Study design: Descriptive – Product Development
