Scaffolding Metacognition with GenAI: Exploring Design Opportunities to Support Task Management for University Students with ADHD

TL;DR

This paper explores how Generative AI can be designed to support university students with ADHD by enhancing their metacognitive skills in task management through co-designed interventions.

Contribution

It introduces three design directions for GenAI tools to scaffold metacognition, emotional regulation, and reflection for students with ADHD, based on participatory research.

Findings

Identified three key design directions for GenAI support.

Co-design sessions revealed student needs and ideas.

Expert interviews validated proposed design strategies.

Abstract

For university students transitioning to an independent and flexible lifestyle, having ADHD poses multiple challenges to their academic task management, which are closely tied to their metacognitive struggles--difficulties in awareness and regulation of one's own thinking processes. The recently surged Generative AI shows promise to mitigate these gaps with its advanced information understanding and generation capabilities. As an exploratory step, we conducted co-design sessions with 20 university students diagnosed with ADHD, followed by interviews with five experts specialized in ADHD intervention. Adopting a metacognitive lens, we examined participants' ideas on GenAI-based task management support and experts' assessments, which led to three design directions: providing cognitive scaffolding to enhance task and self-awareness, promoting reflective task execution for building metacognitive abilities, and facilitating emotional regulation to sustain task engagement. Drawing on these findings, we discuss opportunities for GenAI to support the metacognitive needs of neurodivergent populations, offering future directions for both research and practice.