As part of the Supporting Principals' Professional Learning in Fostering Inclusive Education for Students with Complex Disabilities and Special Educational Needs Research, we are working with Dr. Steve Sider (Wilfrid Laurier University) to conduct research on principals' perceptions of the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in supporting leadership practices for fostering inclusive schools for students with complex disabilities and special educational needs (SEN). This project offers a timely opportunity to examine the perceptions of principals regarding AI and its utility in supporting decision-making.

This research study ran from July 22 to August 30, 2024.

Research Objectives

  • Investigate the opportunities and barriers to using AI to support school principals’ professional learning for responding to situations with students with complex disabilities and SEN.
  • Assess the utility of using an AI-driven chatbot in principals’ professional learning for supporting students with complex disabilities and SEN.

Project Phases

Expression of Interest: Those in an emerging leaders pool and new and experienced vice-principals and principals expressed interest in participating in this study. 

Phase 1 - Survey (10 minutes): Survey of vice-principals and principals to ascertain perspectives on the use of AI for supporting students with complex disabilities and SEN. 

Phase 2 - Chatbot Feedback (10-60 minutes): Providing feedback on a chatbot which offers real-time, searchable access to publicly available legislation, policies, and guidelines related to special education in Ontario as well as which provides scenarios which a principal can complete to practice how they might respond in real-life situations. In this phase, we will provide participants with access to the chatbot and will solicit your input via one item feedback scales to assess how helpful the chatbot was in assisting in tasks. The estimated time for participants will depend on how much they interact with the chatbot. 

Phase 3 - Online Interview for Select Participants (20 minutes): the research team will randomly select ten participants who have agreed to be interviewed to identify benefits, challenges, concerns, utility, and accessibility of the chatbot. 

Updates

  • The team met with 15 Waterloo Region District School Board and Waterloo Catholic District School Board principals in August to do some further “real-time” testing of PrincipalBot and received great feedback.
  • 25 volunteers responded to an invitation through the OPC and the Catholic Principals' Council of Ontario (CPCO) summer leadership courses to participate in another round of assessments in the last two weeks of August.
  • Completed final level of preliminary input into the functionality and design of PrincipalBot.

Next Steps

Laurier is applying for another Canadian Government grant (SSHRC Insight Grant) to expand the chatbot’s capabilities and the measurement of them – OPC, CPCO and British Columbia Principals' & Vice-Principals' Association (BCPVPA) are collaborators on this application. We plan on

  • examining its utility and efficacy in helping new principals’ decision-making skills and
  • using a measure of efficacy pre/post to see if access to the chatbot helped in their decision-making skills, interviews and focus groups to get further input into its utility.

Questions

If you have any questions, please contact Steve Sider at ssider@wlu.ca.