Honors Research Projects Innovating for Equity

On May 4, our own Leonetti/O’Connell Honors Research in Humanities and Social Sciences students hosted an informative Pushing Perspectives about their projects, which centered around expanding educational access through innovative approaches.

“All of these projects connect to our school vision, which is Equity Leads Education,” shared Leonetti/O'Connell Honors Research Program Head Dr. Dan Lynch. “The projects are all about expanding access to education for as many people as possible by making it engaging and available to them.”

The four students who showcased their work were Sophia L. ’27, Maddie M. ’26, Audrey N. ’26, and Annalie Q. ’26. 

Sophia presented her research which studied how AI can support peer tutors by generating practice problems and helping to explain concepts. She utilized Marlborough’s peer-tutoring group and conducted a case study where some tutors were using AI to support their work while others were not. 

“My research question was on AI-assisted tutoring’s influence on students' learning experience, measures of pre-academic self-efficacy—which is confidence levels, peer tutors' perception of their pedagogical skills, or teaching abilities, and then the tutor's perception of the AI over time,” Sophia described. 

Sophia's preliminary findings noted: "Tutors in the AI-assisted tutoring group had an overall positive growing perception of AI: one tutor said more specificity in prompting led to not only improved results from the AI, but increased specificity when explaining concepts to their tutee as well."

Maddie presented a topic she has worked on for the last two years involving the impact of a literacy program (Literacy Coaches and Reading Specialists Educator Training Grant Program or LCRSET) on literacy access for low-income students with special needs in the Compton Unified School District.

“This year was actually the first year that the LCRSET is being implemented within special general education classrooms in Compton,” Maddie shared of her project. “My aim of study was to evaluate the new implementation of the LCRSET within special education in elementary school classrooms, evaluating 3rd through 5th Grades specifically.” 

Maddie’s research concluded: “The LCRSET program has clear potential to improve literacy outcomes for students with special needs, but its success is contingent on strengthening implementation fidelity, increasing instructional support, and adapting the program to better meet the diverse and intensive needs of mild to moderate classrooms.”

Audrey presented a study on the use of StoryFiles in history classrooms, which she had the opportunity to study with 7th graders in Marlborough classrooms. StoryFiles uses non-generative AI to transform interviews with real people into interactive conversations. She shared the example of a man named George, who sat for an interview of one thousand questions about his experience in a Japanese internment camp. By using StoryFiles, history students interact with George and learn about his experience, asking real-time questions with the AI technology utilizing his interview answers to produce a response.

"StoryFiles made the history learning experience a lot more interactive and engaging,” Audrey concluded. “It increased the students' capacity to empathize more with the individual because they were seeing them face to face and it was as if they were talking to them in person. I also think that the Story Files serve as a great way to preserve stories in general and help memorialize people's narratives.”

Finally, Annalie presented her study of the use of the Kind Frog—a silicone-based alternative to animal dissection, to see if it could mitigate ethical discomfort without hindering anatomical learning. For her research, she hosted a series of sessions open to faculty and students and walked participants through a frog dissection with the Kind Frog. After the session, participants answered some questions about the experience, which provided Annalie her findings—the alternative provided a great option to replace traditional animal dissection in science classrooms, allowing for more empathy and better learning.

Annalie was recently honored with the Hero to Animals Award by PETA through their youth division, peta2. This was awarded to her in May 2026 as a direct result of the research she conducted through the Honors Research Program to provide an ethical alternative to animal dissections for scientific study and research. 

The presentations provided the community with invaluable insight into the innovative ways in which Marlborough students are thinking about equity in education and practical strategies for creating more inclusive and effective learning environments. Their research explored ways to thoughtfully remove barriers—whether through AI-enhanced support, specialized literacy coaching, or ethical alternatives—to ensure that every student can access and engage with learning in a way that resonates with their unique needs and values.