When Data Meets Beauty: Indah Fitri Nurhidayah’s AI-Based Exploration of Emotional and Aesthetic Harmony in Reading Assessments, Presented at the Pre-Conference AsiaCALL 2025
Cirebon, October, 11th 2025 — Under the guidance of the International Office and Partnership of UIN Siber Syekh Nurjati Cirebon, led by Lala Bumela, Ph.D., a capacity-building workshop was held as part of the Pre-Conference AsiaCALL 2025. The event served as a preparatory platform for students presenting their full papers at the upcoming international conference. It brought together seven members of the Global Engagement Team—students who not only represented their institution but also the spirit of Indonesia’s digital education innovation on the global stage. The workshop was joined by international researcher Emma L. Schuberg from Charles Darwin University, Australia, who provided academic feedback and cross-institutional insights. Among the presenters, Indah Fitri Nurhidayah stood out with her thought-provoking paper titled “AI-Assisted Evaluation of Emotional and Aesthetic Alignment in Grade 10 Reading Assessments Based on PISA 2022 Standards.” As noted by Lala Bumela, the aim of this initiative was to “build a bridge between local research and international academic dialogue, empowering students to think critically, creatively, and globally.”
Indah’s presentation began with a compelling question: “Can we truly understand reading if we ignore how students feel and what they find beautiful in the text?” This inquiry reflected her concern about the dominance of test-oriented pedagogy in Indonesia, where reading assessments are often confined to literal comprehension and grammatical accuracy. Indah narrated how this narrow approach suppresses emotional engagement and aesthetic appreciation—key dimensions of what neuroscientists call deep learning. She highlighted that while Indonesia’s education reforms, including the Merdeka Curriculum, emphasize creativity and critical thinking, the actual assessment practices remain trapped in a mechanical cycle of textual recall. Her research emerged from this tension between the vision of holistic education and the practice of reductive testing, signaling a need to rethink how reading is measured and valued in classrooms.
During the workshop discussion, Lala Bumela, Ph.D., commended Indah’s attempt to blend technology with emotional literacy, emphasizing that “education today must not only teach the mind but also train the emotional and aesthetic sensibilities that make learning human.” He remarked that the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in language education should be viewed not as a threat, but as an opportunity to extend the boundaries of assessment—moving beyond rote comprehension toward emotional resonance and reflective depth. The dialogue between Indah and the academic mentors underscored the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration: linguistics meeting neuroscience, technology intersecting with aesthetics, and education embracing empathy. This exchange became the heart of the workshop—where ideas about data, emotion, and meaning converged in productive harmony.
Indah’s study employed a qualitative thematic content analysis using AI assistance through the Qwen model to evaluate reading assessment items from the textbook “Work in Progress” (Grade 10, Ministry of Education, 2022). She applied three theoretical frameworks: the PISA 2022 Reading Literacy Framework (Access and Retrieve, Understand, Use, and Reflect), the Reading for Emotion Framework by Ania Lian (2017), and the Neuroaesthetics Theory by Ramachandran and Hirstein (1999). Through this triangulation, she examined how cognitive, emotional, and aesthetic dimensions interrelate in reading comprehension tasks. Her findings revealed that while certain items aligned with PISA’s lower-order standards, they often failed to engage students in reflective, affective, and creative reasoning. Particularly missing was the “Dialogue” stage—where learners are encouraged to emotionally negotiate meaning—and the aesthetic richness that stimulates curiosity and joy. Her analytical depth demonstrated how AI could be used not merely as a grading tool but as a cognitive partner that reveals hidden emotional and aesthetic layers in textual design.
From these findings, Indah proposed the concept of AI-Enhanced Holistic Reading Evaluation, an approach that harmonizes cognition, emotion, and aesthetics. “AI should not only process data—it should illuminate feeling,” she reflected, emphasizing the transformative potential of technology in redefining literacy. Her framework calls for reading assessments that invite students to think, feel, and imagine simultaneously, thus aligning with the Deep Learning principles of meaningful, conscious, and joyful education promoted by the Ministry of Education. Indah’s paper illustrated how data and beauty can coexist: AI quantifies the measurable, while aesthetics amplifies the meaningful. This synergy, she argued, is what makes learning both intelligent and humane.
The presentation concluded with a reflection from Lala Bumela, Ph.D., who noted that the success of such student-led research represents a milestone in Indonesia’s journey toward global academic engagement. He stated, “When our students use technology not merely to calculate but to contemplate, they become true scholars of the future.” The Pre-Conference AsiaCALL 2025 thus became more than a preparatory event—it was a crucible of transformation, where young minds learned to blend critical inquiry with emotional awareness and technological innovation. Indah Fitri Nurhidayah’s work stood as a testament to that convergence, showing that the future of education lies not in choosing between data and beauty, but in uniting them in the shared pursuit of understanding.
Author: Muhammad Azkiya Bahtsulkhoir