Chin research group to present at HFES annual meeting

Jessie Chin
Jessie Chin, Assistant Professor
Smit Desai
Smit Desai

Assistant Professor Jessie Chin and PhD student Smit Desai will present their research at the 64th International Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES), a virtual event held from October 5-9. The mission of HFES is "to advance the science and practice of designing for people in systems through knowledge exchange, collaboration, and advocacy."

Desai will present the paper, "An Explorative Analysis of the Feasibility of Implementing Metacognitive Strategies in Self-Regulated Learning with the Conversational Agents," which he coauthored with Chin. For their study, Desai and Chin analyzed commercially available conversational agents, synthesized the metacognitive strategies implemented in computer-based learning environments, and examined the feasibility to implement these strategies on conversational agents. According to the researchers, the implications of this study include "designing scalable and accessible evidence-based theory-driven educational applications to support users to learn new knowledge on their own using the off-the-shelf devices."

Desai's research interests include the usability and prototyping of voice interfaces, in particular the user's mental model while interacting with these interfaces. He earned his bachelor's degree in computer engineering from Gujarat Technological University in India and his MS in information management from the University of Illinois.

Chin will present the paper, "A User Study on the Feasibility and Acceptance of Delivering Physical Activity Programs to Older Adults through Conversational Agents," which she coauthored with Kelly Quinn, Naoko Muramatsu, and David Marquez of the University of Illinois at Chicago. She will discuss their study examining how older adults interact with a physical activity virtual coach on a Google Home device. The researchers found that all older adults were able to recover from the conversation failure during the interaction with the virtual coach; complete the physical activity program with guidance from the coach and demonstrated intentions to use such conversational agents in the future.

Chin's research aims to advance knowledge in cognitive sciences regarding evolving human interaction with the contemporary information technologies and translating theories in social and behavioral sciences to the design of technologies and interaction experience to promote health communication and behavior across the lifespan. She holds a BS in psychology from National Taiwan University, an MS in human factors, and a PhD in educational psychology with a focus on cognitive science in teaching and learning from the University of Illinois. 

Updated on
Backto the news archive

Related News

McDowell to present keynote on data storytelling

Associate Professor Kate McDowell will present the closing keynote of the Measures of Success Educator Impact Series at Western Michigan University (WMU) on March 21. The virtual series, which is sponsored by the WMUx Office of Faculty Development, focuses on equity and educator impact.

Kate McDowell

Dahlen selected as judge for National Book Awards

Associate Professor Sarah Park Dahlen has been selected by the National Book Foundation to serve as a judge for the 74th National Book Awards. The foundation chose 25 judges for this year's awards, which are given in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people’s literature.

Sarah Park Dahlen

Downie to present keynote at CHIIR 2023

Professor and Associate Dean For Research J. Stephen Downie will be the keynote speaker for the 2023 ACM SIGIR Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval (CHIIR 2023), which will be held on March 19-23 in Austin, Texas. In addition to information interaction and retrieval, the multidisciplinary conference explores topics such as human-human information interaction, novel interaction paradigms, new evaluation methods, and related research from various fields.

Stephen Downie

Lawrence Auld, former faculty member, passes away

Lawrence W.S. Auld (PhD '75) passed away on March 2, 2023. He returned to school to earn a PhD in library and information science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and served on the faculty at UIUC and then at East Carolina University until his retirement in 2003.

Lawrence Auld

Postdoctoral Research Associate Program prepares future faculty

In the 2021-2022 academic year, the iSchool launched its Postdoctoral Research Associate Program. The goal of this program is to prepare candidates for tenure-track assistant professor or other appointments inside and outside of academia. The cohort has grown to five postdocs, and applications are currently being accepted for the 2023-2024 academic year.