Children's Expectations, Engagement, and Evaluation of an LLM-enabled Spherical Visualization Platform in the Classroom

TL;DR

This study explores how primary school children interact with and evaluate an LLM-enabled spherical visualization platform in a classroom, providing insights into its educational potential and user expectations.

Contribution

It presents empirical findings on children's expectations, engagement, and evaluations of an LLM-augmented visualization system in a formal educational setting.

Findings

Children showed curiosity and positive engagement with the system.

Expectations included natural language interaction and visual explanations.

Children's evaluations highlighted both potential and areas for improvement.

Abstract

We present our first stage results from deploying an LLM-augmented visualization software in a classroom setting to engage primary school children with earth-related datasets. Motivated by the growing interest in conversational AI as a means to support inquiry-based learning, we investigate children's expectations, engagement, and evaluation of a spoken LLM interface with a shared, immersive visualization system in a formal educational context. Our system integrates a speech-capable large language model with an interactive spherical display. It enables children to ask natural-language questions and receive coordinated verbal explanations and visual responses through the LLM-augmented visualization updating in real time based on spoken queries. We report on a classroom study with Swedish children aged 9-10, combining structured observation and small-group discussions to capture expectations prior to interaction, interaction patterns during facilitated sessions, and children's reflections on their encounter afterward. Our results provide empirical insights into children's initial encounters with an LLM-enabled visualization platform within a classroom setting and their expectations, interactions, and evaluations of the system. These findings inform the technology's potential for educational use and highlight important directions for future research.