Project Activities
The project’s personalized counseling assistance tool, delivered as a mobile/web app, empowers both students and counselors. An engaging ‘Discovery’ process working in tandem with classical and generative AI systems provides students individualized, hyperlocal ‘Path Charting’ via a chatbot interface. Counselors then access real-time information and resources to support students on mental wellness and college and career readiness.
In Phase I, the project team developed a novel prototype of an app with components including engaging quizzes, a statistical model to analyze student responses to map out their personality and interests, and an AI chatbot to enable students to get personalized responses to a broad array of questions such as the most appropriate internships in the area. Student responses were also made available to the school counselors who could view data from individuals or across their caseload. At the end of Phase I, the team conducted a pilot study with 130 high school students and 10 guidance counselors over 10 weeks. Students rated the experience to be highly engaging, which increased over time. Counselors found it to be impactful in surfacing student needs and interests, by expanding channels for communication and flagging students for proactive outreach. Our pilot results as part of Phase IA demonstrated that the capabilities enabled by the Edifii system–namely articulation of self and granular action plans–propel students towards career and college goals, increase effectiveness of student-counselor interactions, and provide systemic insights to school leadership.
In Phase II, planned work will expand system deployment to middle school, scale up the sample to enable a randomized study with 250 8th to 12th graders and 4 school counselors, and further enhance Edifii’s Path Charting to maximize personalization and comprehensiveness of the guidance provided.
Products and publications
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