Ph.D. student
University of Michigan, School of Information
Hi, I’m Zihan, a third-year Ph.D. student at UMSI, and I am interested in CS education and educational technology in general. My current research focus is scalable personalized scaffolding to introductory Computer Science learners. I am advised by professor Barbara Ericson.
Prior to entering UMSI, I received my B.E. at the Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University. I also received a B.S. in Psychology as a second major. I have a mixed theoretical background in HCI, Psychology, and learning science.
I am experienced in web development (both frontend and backend) as well as using machine learning models to boost user experience. I am a fast tech learner and am always happy to try out new frameworks and tools, whichever are the most suitable for my current research.
In terms of research methods, I prefer a mixed-methods approach which combines qualitative methods including participant interviews and observations, and quantitative research methods with scaled user testing.