Kean Faculty Member Earns Prestigious Spencer Foundation Research Grant
June 26, 2026

Professor Jennifer J. Chen, Ed.D., has received a prestigious research grant from the Spencer Foundation to lead a two-year study examining how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is used in early childhood education, and to develop ethical, research-based frameworks to guide teachers’ effective integration of AI into teaching.
Chen is the first faculty member from Kean University to earn a Spencer Foundation research grant. The foundation is the only national organization focused exclusively on supporting education research.
Her research explores how early childhood educators engage with AI and seeks to establish clear, evidence-based guidelines to ensure the technology is used effectively and responsibly in classroom settings.
“At a time when AI is rapidly reshaping education, I feel called to advance principled, research-based frameworks to ensure its effective, ethical and responsible use,” Chen said. “This grant is a direct response to this mission, and I will extend this work internationally in collaboration with scholars across several countries to set an ethical standard for assessing AI use by educators.”
The grant, which is approximately $50,000, will support Chen’s project, “A Psychometric Evaluation of the Purposeful, Optimal, Wise, Ethical, and Responsible (POWER) Scales: Assessing AI Use in Teaching Among Early Childhood Teachers.” The study builds on a framework Chen previously introduced in her co-authored article, Artificial Intelligence as a Double-Edged Sword: Wielding the POWER Principles to Maximize Its Positive Effects and Minimize Its Negative Effects.
The Spencer Foundation has been a leading funder of education research since 1971 and is the only national foundation focused exclusively on education research, supporting rigorous, relevant, equitable, collaborative and transformative research projects.
Chen’s proposal was selected as one of only 38 funded projects from 905 submissions in that round.