Department of Psychology |
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Research Interests |
| My research interests are in two distinct areas. For a long time, I have conducted research on text processing. A major focus of that line of research has been the influence of a variety of writing devices (e.g., headings, typographical variation; summaries and overviews) on comprehension and memory processes. This work has been conducted almost entirely with college students, but I may extend it to a younger population and investigate the use of these "signaling devices" in reading and writing interventions. My other line of research is conducted with Dr. Elizabeth Lorch and Dr. William Calderhead. It is concerned with science education in elementary schools, with a particular focus on characteristics of teaching interventions that determine their relative efficacy. |
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Current Projects |
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One of my research programs is directly relevant to the theme, "Children at Risk." This research is in collaboration with Elizabeth Lorch, William Calderhead, Ben Freer, Michael Chen, and Jessica Koslowski. The research concerns teaching science in elementary schools; specifically, it concerns teaching the logic of simple experiments. The research uses the domain of ramps and balls (i.e., forces and motion) to illustrate the concept that evaluating whether an independent variable has a causal effect on some dependent variable requires that the independent variable be manipulated and all other variables be equated. Although we have had good success teaching the "control of variables strategy" (CVS) in high-achieving schools, we have been less successful using the same teaching intervention in lower-achieving schools. We are trying to identify the reasons for our lower success in these schools and devise interventions that are more successful. Our attempts should lead to improved understanding of effective teaching principles, in general, and principles that work in lower-achieving environments, in particular. |
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