I study how families make sense of AI together, how parents' own experiences with and beliefs about AI shape the messages they send their children, and how the alignment or mismatch between parent and adolescent AI beliefs shapes young people's learning, reliance, and future readiness.
Program overview
What a new technology does for—or to—a child depends less on the technology than on the adults beside her. This program treats the family as the primary environment in which children's AI use takes shape and follows that question across two developmental periods and two methodological lenses.
Early childhood · ages 9–11
The question is immediate and behavioral: when parents and children work together on a hard problem, does AI become a scaffold for thinking or a shortcut that makes effort optional? Parental scaffolding, performance pressure, and the moment-to-moment choices families make around the chatbot are the variables that matter.
Late adolescence · ages 17–20
The same question extends across time: how do the beliefs parents and teenagers hold about AI, and whether those beliefs align, shape motivation, cognitive strategies, and readiness for an uncertain future?
Study 1
This study mapped which AI tools students used, what they used them for, and whether they saw AI as enhancing their capabilities or threatening valued human capacities. The interview component explores how students make sense of AI in their academic lives, including learning, pressure, trust, authenticity, boundaries, and their expectations for the future.
RPIC 2026 · Keynote masterclass
Setoh, P. P., & Wu, J. (June 2026). Educating for the unpredictable—Developing human strengths in the AI age. Redesigning Pedagogy International Conference (RPIC) 2026, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
ACDC / SEA-LION 2026 · Workshop presentation
Wu, J., & Setoh, P. P. (April 2026). AI as opportunity more than threat? Student AI practices and cultural meanings of competence in Singapore. Presentation at the Asian Centre for Digital Cultures (ACDC) and Southeast Asian Languages in One Network (SEA-LION) Workshop on Culturally Aligned AI, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Study 2
This planned strand will examine how parents and children understand one another’s expectations for AI, how families establish guidance and boundaries, and what supports AI use that strengthens children’s capabilities and independence. It will also explore parent–child interactions during AI-supported learning tasks to understand how the introduction of AI as a third participant reshapes family learning dynamics.
Surveys characterize tools, use cases, and the coexistence of positive and negative perceptions.
Qualitative interviews examine how adolescents and their parents reason about learning, pressure, trust, and authenticity.
Future family research will add a developmental and relational perspective without prespecifying unsupported designs.
Talks & collaboration
With AI changing everything so fast, none of us have all the answers—and that's exactly why it's exciting to think about these questions together. If any of this resonates with you, I'd love to connect and chat!