Research Plan
Team: Michael Bruner, Sarah Lee, Eric Chi, Louis An, Emily Whiteside
Research Objectives
What we want to learn
In our research we have a few primary objectives. These objectives involve understanding our potential users, gaining insight into current learning tools, and grasping the potential of state of the art AI.
With our Users we want to understand their language learning journey so far. What have been their greatest pain points and how have they addressed them with current technology and conventional learning practices. We want to understand what aspects have been difficult for them and which have been fairly easy. Which parts of language learning would be most beneficial to address? Specific subjects, accent help, simulated conversations.
With secondary research and interviews we want to discover any tools and applications that have been helpful in learning a new language and what specifically made them helpful.
Understanding the current state of AI natural language processing through secondary research, will allow us to make informed design decisions on how AI can leveraged to solve problems for our users.
Frames
User Frame
Our target users are international students, exchange students, and study abroad students.
Business Frame
Problem Frame
Prove Me Wrong
What “prove me wrong data” will you be looking for
When conducting our research we want to be sure and look for data that will challenge our assumptions. For us this involves asking our users if they perceive any additional need for digital language learning tools. Are digital language learning tools even helpful? How often do people use the language learning technology they already have? Is AI able to address the problems our users are facing? Are they comfortable using AI to help them learn languages and listen to their conversations.
We want to be sure and ask these challenging questions so we can get a clear idea of what users are actually looking for.
Secondary Research
The secondary research resources we will be investigating include:
AI Natural Language
Natural Language Progress, Medium Article: Different model types
Open AI Unsupervised Language Understanding
Teaching
Natural Age Cut off For Learning A New Language
Language Learning Products
Popular Languages to Learn
Individual Learning Styles
Popular ways to learn for adults
How The Internet Had Changed Language Learning
Vocabulary learning strategies of adult ESL learners
Developments in online language learning
A review of mobile language learning applications: Trends, challenges, and opportunities
Primary Research Method
Our Primary Research method will be to conduct in-person interviews with international students at UT to learn about their experiences with learning languages.
We would also like to interview professors who teach language and education.
Schedule
Our Three week schedule
Data Collection Method
We plan to video record our individual interviews and summarize our findings afterwards to share them with the group. For our secondary research, we are going to add our useful findings to a shared Google Doc.
