Learning Sciences Concentration
The Human Development, Culture, & Learning Sciences specialization offers two concentrations: Human Development and Culture and Learning Sciences.
Learning Sciences is an academic area of concentration in HDCLS and is designed primarily as preparation for university and college teaching and research. A significant number of graduates, however, engage in similar teaching and research activities in government, industry, professional schools, school systems, and other types of instructional and applied settings.
The primary goal for students who choose this concentration is to acquire strong theoretical understanding and methodological skills needed to conduct original research and development work in the learning sciences. Educational psychologists who concentrate their work in this area try to understand better the factors that influence how human competence and performance change (learning and motivation) and what might be done to facilitate positive change (instruction). Typically, a cognitive framework is used to understand learning, motivation, and instruction; that is, mental processes and structures are postulated to account for learning and motivation and for the effects of instruction. Within this, there is great diversity in specific research questions being explored and the methods used, such as when attention is drawn to contextual and cultural influences on these mental processes and structure. Students gain experience in using a variety of research techniques, such as naturalistic observation, thinking aloud protocols, cluster analysis, and standard experimental manipulation, in order to understand each method's strengths, weaknesses, and appropriate use.
Students also acquire skills in instructional design and development that are particularly important for those who expect to pursue careers in teaching, industry, and other applied settings.
Course work and research activities are geared to meet individual needs, qualifications, and objectives. On completion of core area requirements, students may plan the remainder of their academic preparation through individual consultation with faculty members whose primary research interests and activities are in the student’s area of interest. In line with developing faculty and student research interests, current areas of faculty research are described below:
Erika Patall – Research on applying social psychological theory to education; determinants, development, and environmental support of motivation and achievement; effects of autonomy support and provision or construal of choice; individual differences in motivation and academic beliefs; the influence of activities of children outside of school on academic achievement; development and use of meta-analytic methods in social science research.
Daniel Robinson – Research on optimizing learning in computer simulation environments, testing and team-based testing effects, and research trends and practices in empirical journals.
Diane Schallert – Research is focused broadly on the interface between language and human functioning. Specific topics include comprehension and production processes involved in using oral and written language and learning from language, the role of affect in learning, and socio-cultural descriptions of how people learn from classroom interactions.
Marilla Svinicki – Research on applying the principles of learning and motivation to instructional design and practice; on factors that affect the development of community in a classroom; on the preparation of teachers; on preparation in the professions of engineering and health sciences education; on student and instructor variables that influence the effectiveness of teaching and learning.
Claire Ellen Weinstein – The development of theoretical models of strategic and self-regulated learning and the use of these models in the development of educational interventions to identify risks and enhance learning, achievement and retention of students, particularly those at-risk for academic failure; development of faculty interventions designed to teach faculty how to incorporate teaching how to learn and think about their content area.