Metacognitive AI Advisors
How transparency, reasoning, and adaptability in AI advisors shape advice utilization, trust, and decision outcomes across structured and unstructured tasks.
Information Systems · Human Centred AI · McMaster University
Designing AI that helps people think better.
I am Bita Mehri, a PhD candidate in Information Systems at the DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University. I study metacognitive AI advisors and human-AI judgment: how transparency, reasoning, and adaptability shape advice utilization, appropriate reliance, trust, and decision outcomes.
Current focusMetacognitive AI advisors and human judgment
Research premise
The important question is not simply whether AI is beneficial or harmful. It is how AI should be designed and used so that people reach better decisions without surrendering their agency.
Research agenda
Three connected streams
My work connects Information Systems, metacognition, and human-AI collaboration to understand how people reason, evaluate AI advice, and make decisions.
Human-AI Judgment and Reliance
How metacognition, critical thinking, trust, and perceived AI competence shape appropriate reliance, overreliance, and AI-supported reasoning.
AI Capability and Organizational Performance
How organizational AI capability relates to firm performance, and how sensing, seizing, and transforming help explain that relationship.
Selected work
Current research portfolio
Dissertation · Experimental data collection in progress
How Metacognitive AI Influences Advice Utilization
A multi-study investigation of transparency, reasoning, adaptability, and task structuredness. My dissertation examines how these capabilities of AI advisors can be tuned, and how they affect human judgment, advice utilization, appropriate reliance, overreliance, trust, and decision outcomes.
Online experiments · Behavioral reliance · Qualtrics and GorillaConference-to-journal development
Metacognitive AI and Appropriate Reliance in AI-Assisted Decision-Making
Extends my AMCIS 2025 Emergent Research Forum paper to examine trust resilience, critical thinking, automation bias, and calibrated reliance on AI advice.
AMCIS 2025 · Human-AI collaborationSubmitted to the Journal of Management Information Systems (JMIS)
Organizational AI Capability and Firm Performance
Beyond possessing AI: What makes AI valuable in organizations? A meta-analysis through an affordance actualization lens, synthesizing 42 studies, 45 samples, and 142 effect-size units. The manuscript tests boundary conditions and examines sensing, seizing, and transforming mechanisms.
Random-effects meta-analysis · Meta-regression · Two-stage MASEMManuscript in final preparation for submission to Decision Support Systems.
Augmented Reality and Decision Comfort
A first-authored research project examining how augmented reality builds decision comfort through spatial presence in online shopping.
Survey research · Measurement validation · PROCESSData analysis and manuscript development
When Does Perceived AI Competence Lead to Behavioral Reliance?
Investigates whether perceived AI superiority conditions how perceived AI competence shapes trust and behavioral reliance on AI advice, in collaboration with Seyed Javad Emadi Chashmi.
Trust · Perceived AI superiority · Weight on adviceEarly-stage collaboration
Explainable Artificial Intelligence and Trust: A Meta-Analysis
Developing a meta-analysis of how explainable AI influences user trust, in collaboration with Seyed Javad Emadi Chashmi.
Explainable AI · Trust · Meta-analysis2026 SIGHCI Pre-ICIS Workshop · Submitted; decision pending
Designing Metacognitive AI Advisors
A Research-in-Progress paper with Maryam Ghasemaghaei on how transparency, reasoning, and adaptability shape advice utilization in human-AI decision making.
Research-in-Progress submission · Metacognition · Advice utilizationAMCIS 2025 · Emergent Research ForumThe Impact of Metacognitive AI on Appropriate Reliance in AI-Assisted Decision-Making: The Role of Trust Resilience and Critical Thinking
Mehri, B., & Ghasemaghaei, M. · AMCIS 2025 Proceedings, 27.
Read paperPre-ICIS SIGDSA 2023Does AI Metacognitive Ability Lead to Higher AI Advice Utilization?Mehri, B., & Ghasemaghaei, M. · Proceedings of the 2023 Pre-ICIS SIGDSA Symposium, 9.
Read paper2018 · Conference proceedingsWhat drives an audience in Generation Z to continue following a blogger on Instagram, and how does this affect purchase intention?Mehri, B. · 6th National Conference on Applied Research in Management and Accounting, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.
View details in CVTeaching
Analytical confidence through practice.
I design learning experiences that connect conceptual understanding with applied problem solving. Students learn how to use analytical tools, interpret results, question assumptions, and defend their decisions.
Learn by doingExplain the reasoningUse AI critically
Instructor of Record · Winter 2026
COMM 3KE3 — Management of Enterprise Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence. Taught two blended sections at McMaster, designed an AI-focused team project, and delivered tutorials in RStudio, Tableau, JMP, and Excel macros/VBA.
Lead Teaching Assistant · Fall 2026
COMM 3KE3. Currently supporting two sections through tutorials, office hours, assignment guidance, grading coordination, and student troubleshooting.
Head Teaching Assistant · Winter 2026
COMM 2KA3 — Information Systems in Management. Coordinated teaching assistants, marking rubrics, grading calibration, and student support for database design, Access, ER diagrams, and SQL.
Additional experience includes COMM 2KA3 teaching assistantships beginning in Fall 2022, COMM 3KE3 teaching assistantships beginning in Winter 2023, and English-language instruction at Darboy Private Teaching Institute (2010–2018).
104students across two sections as Instructor of Record
9.5/10student-evaluation median · C01, Winter 2026
9/10student-evaluation median · C02, Winter 2026
4hands-on software tutorials designed and delivered
Experience
A multidisciplinary path into Information Systems.
PhD in Business Administration, Information Systems
DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University · Expected completion: 2027
Supervisor: Dr. Maryam Ghasemaghaei · Committee: Dr. Brian Detlor and Dr. Khaled Hassanein.
Sessional Faculty · Instructor of Record
COMM 3KE3 — Management of Enterprise Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence, McMaster University
Master of Business Administration, Marketing
Amirkabir University of Technology · Ranked first in the Class of 2020 · GPA: 19.30/20
Bachelor of Engineering, Civil Engineering
University of Isfahan
Selected recognition
Honours, funding, and academic service
DeGroote International Graduate PhD Student Scholarship
CAD $7,500 · DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University.
Faculty of Business Distinguished Ph.D. Student Scholarship
CAD $5,000 annually · DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University.
Joint Top Judges’ Award, CCBRS Poster Competition
Recognition for dissertation research on metacognitive AI and appropriate reliance.
Norm Archer Endowed Prize
CAD $1,000 · Awarded for commitment, excellence, and integrity in coursework and research.
Summer Research Scholarship (SGS Research)
CAD $6,400 annually · School of Graduate Studies, McMaster University.
GS for OT Student VISA Financial Award
CAD $10,000 · McMaster University.
McMaster University Doctoral Funding Package
Graduate scholarships, teaching assistantships, and research funding.
Ad Hoc Reviewer
AMCIS (2024, 2025, 2026); ECIS (2026); HICSS (2025, 2026); ICIS (2023, 2026); SIGHCI Pre-ICIS Workshop (2026); Pre-ICIS SIGDSA Symposium (2023).
Graduate Supervision Award Nomination Coordinator
Lead nominator and package coordinator for Maryam Ghasemaghaei’s nomination for McMaster’s President’s Award for Excellence in Graduate Supervision.
External Expert Rater for Generative AI Knowledge Test Validation
Independent expert assessment of a knowledge-test instrument for an Information Systems research project.
AIS and Research Communities
AIS, SIGDSA, SIG DITE, and SIGHCI (2023–Present); Iranian Scholars Chapter of AIS, IRAIS (2025–Present).
AIS Mentorship Program
Participant in the Association for Information Systems mentorship program.
Presentations and participation
Conferences and milestones
6th Annual SIG DITE Paper Development Workshop
Presented my dissertation-based working paper on transparency, reasoning, adaptability, and task structuredness at SmithToronto, Queen’s University, in Toronto.
Digital Futures Symposium
Participated at SmithToronto, Smith School of Business, Queen’s University, in Toronto.
CCBRS at the University of Guelph
Participated in the Canadian Conference for Business Research Students at the Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics.
Digital Futures Symposium
Participated at the Ron Joyce Centre, DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University, in Burlington.
AMCIS in Montréal
Presented my Emergent Research Forum paper on metacognitive AI, appropriate reliance, trust resilience, and critical thinking.
CCBRS Poster Competition
Presented dissertation research on metacognitive AI and appropriate reliance at McMaster University; received a Joint Top Judges’ Award.
Pre-ICIS SIGDSA Symposium
Presented “Does AI Metacognitive Ability Lead to Higher AI Advice Utilization?” at the virtual symposium.
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