Preparing for an AI‑driven future
“My work is focused on preparing people to be empowered, educated, and skeptical users - or non-users - of artificial intelligence”, LEAD AI postdoctoral fellow Jessa Henderson says.
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"It is more important than ever to collect empirical data that grounds our decision-making, policy guidelines, and training on AI in education. We need to simultaneously track present, practical uses of AI while also looking ahead, by both designing the imagined future we want to work towards - and actively anticipating and preparing for potential dangers that may lead us to a future we don’t", Henderson says.
The LEAD AI researcher’s interdisciplinary project mixes influences from her academic background in political science, psychology and data science, with a decade of experience in education as a high school teacher and technology teacher educator in the United States.
“I hope that findings from my project can be practically useful for those crafting AI in education policy, training educators, and preparing learners for an AI future. Having empirical data that can highlight benefits and potential pitfalls is an important way for us to cut through AI hype that’s not backed by data or evidence”, Henderson says.
Responding to rapid change
Her research investigates how the education sector can respond to rapid technological change.
“With LEAD AI, I have a variety of research projects that coalesce around the theme of preparing people in educational contexts for an AI future”, she says.
Key research questions include how PhD candidates utilize generative AI and how it impacts their cognitive processes – as well as how we can prepare educators to guide learners, like teachers and professors, in the new technological environment.
As a former high school teacher, Henderson is motivated by producing work that has practical relevance. Experience from the classroom creates a strong awareness of how research impacts real‑world educational contexts and a responsibility to ensure that research findings are genuinely useful.
Early findings
After the project’s first year, several promising findings have emerged.
“I conducted an exploratory study comparing different generative AI models in the task of developing themes for a literature review, in comparison with a human-written publication on the same topic. While the technology was helpful, it still lacked in depth when compared to the findings reported by the human researchers”, she says.
The findings were presented at the Emerging Researchers’ portion of the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) in 2025.
She has also recently conducted a small pilot study at UiB to better understand how early career researchers, like Ph.D. candidates and postdoctoral researchers, are currently using generative AI in their work. One preliminary result is that a main use for generative AI was related to coding tasks.
Based on these projects, Henderson is in the process of designing an experimental project that investigates how the use of AI impacts researcher cognitive processes, with data collection planned for early 2027.
New cultures and systems
The opportunity to get to know a new academic institution, cultural dynamics and systems, were part of the reasons why Henderson applied to the University of Bergen, as one of the researchers in the initial LEAD AI cohort.
“I believe it’s beneficial for us as researchers when we are able to leave our own ways of knowing and doing, and compare it with others”, she says, adding:
“I’ve spent a lot of time this past year in formal trainings, relied on informal mentorship and relationships, and built collaborative research relationships with people who differ in background from myself. I’m very thankful for all the resources and support here at the University of Bergen overall, within the Centre for the Science of Learning and Technology (SLATE) where I conduct my research, and within the LEAD AI program”.
Technological advancement and hype
“As I use, investigate, and talk to people about AI in research and education, I am both amazed by what people can do with the technology, and also reminded that there is a tremendous amount of hype in the discourse around AI”, Henderson says.
It can feel overwhelming sometimes to try to keep up with the latest development surrounding AI.
“One of the ways I’ve countered this feeling is through revisiting past research from different eras of technological change. There are so many lessons to be learned from our past and so many avenues for inquiry that past research can offer the current moment”, Henderson states.
