The department's research centers on fundamental issues in human development, human cognition, and measurement and applied statistics to increase scientific knowledge and help solve educational and social problems. This year:

Matthew Johnson received a National Science Foundation grant to conduct statistical analysis to identify specific strengths and weaknesses underlying the performance ranking of U.S. students on the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).

Young-Sun Lee coauthored a paper in Applied Psychological Measurement that used data from the fourth grade TIMSS to demonstrate significant relationships between students' abilities in science and mathematics.

Catherine Chase's chapter "Motivating Expertise: Equipping Novices with the Motivational Tools to Move Beyond Failure" appeared in Expertise and Skill Acquisition: The Impact of William G. Chase(Psychology Press).

Xiaodong Lin reported at the American Educational Research Association her findings that New York City students who read and reflected upon stories of famous scientists facing intellectual or life struggles increased their growth mindset and academic performance.

With Spencer Foundation funding, Elizabeth Tipton (at right) developed software to target and recruit schools and school districts for large scale research and to improve generalizations from experiential findings.

The National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education,the U.S. Army and the Gates Foundation funded Ryan Baker to continue development of online systems that infer student engagement and predict long-term student outcomes (see page 3). In fall 2014, Baker also taught Teachers College's first massive open online course(MOOC), which focused on the burgeoning field of mining data from interactive online learning technologies. The course drew some 48,000 students. Baker has since been mining data fromthe course to understand factors that promote or inhibit the engagement of students in anonline learning environment.

Carey Cooper received a Society for Research on Adolescence grant for a follow-up study of the socioeconomic factors that affect the educational attainment of Mayan youth in rural Guatemala.

Published Wednesday, Mar. 11, 2015