The excellence of the Educational Psychology faculty's research and teaching has been recognized in many ways. Our faculty members are rated highly by our students for our teaching effectiveness.

The faculty have received funding for their research from both federal and private sources, are invited to contribute chapters to major books in the field, give invited addresses nationally and internationally, serve on editorial boards of major journals and on review panels for federal agencies, and publish original research in the best journals in our fields.

Two faculty members from the Measurement and Statistics Program also have a special relationship with Educational Psychology. They advise EP graduate students with research interests in their areas of expertise and may teach Educational Psychology courses.

Stephen M. Alessi, Associate Professor (Ph.D. 1979, University of Illinois) conducts research on educational multimedia design, with an emphasis on realism in simulations and multimedia techniques for second language acquisition. Email: steve-alessi@uiowa.edu Telephone: 319/335-5568

Research with Graduate Assistants:
Graduate assistants working with Dr. Alessi may participate in the development of educational software and administration of research studies on the effectiveness of different software characteristics.

Nancy Ewald Jackson, Professor Emeritus (Ph.D. 1975, University of Washington) conducts research on individual differences in the development of word reading and text comprehension. Her current research focuses on how the reading process differs for successful adult readers with different component skill patterns. She also has studied readers of English as a scond language and children who are precocious readers. She has a special interest in the education and development of gifted children. Email: nancy-jackson@uiowa.edu

Research with Graduate Assistants:
Graduate research assistants working with Dr. Jackson typically are involved in administering measures of word and text reading and related skills to individual adults or children. They may interview people about their experiences with reading and reading instruction, help to develop measures of reading that tap particular cognitive skills, or transcribe and code tape recordings of oral reading. Dr. Jackson's research assistants also are likely to assist with computer-based statistical analysis of quantitative data.

David F. Lohman, Professor (Ph.D. 1979, Stanford University) conducts research on human intelligence in general and is particularly interested in the application of cognitive psychology to the measurement of academic learning. He currently is supervising revision of a group intelligence test that is widely used in American public schools.

Email: david-lohman@uiowa.edu
Telephone: 319/335-5574

Research with Graduate Assistants:
Graduate students work with Dr. Lohman on a range of issues. Some work on the issue of how best to adapt instruction to meet the needs of different students. Others work on the nature of reasoning abilities, how they can be measured, and how they can be improved. Others work on developing case studies of individual students who have been administered CogAT and other ability and achievement tests. Finally, some work on more technical issues in measurement, such as how best to index the error in an individual student's test scores.

Dr. Rocklin with students.

Thomas R. Rocklin, Professor and Vice Provost (Ph.D. 1981, Northwestern University) has conducted research on personality and individual differences and is particularly interested in test anxiety and test design. In addition to being a member of our program faculty, Dr. Rocklin has served as Director of The University of Iowa Center for Teaching. In this position, he became involved in scholarship related to improving the effectiveness of university-level instruction.

Email: thomas-rocklin@uiowa.edu
Telephone: 319/335-6048

Kathy L. Schuh, Assistant Professor (Ph.D. 2000, Indiana University) conducts research on how children make meaning from the information they encounter in their classrooms and the personal experience and prior learning they bring with them. The overall goal of her research is to develop instructional interventions that are theoretically grounded in these meaning-making processes.

Dr. Schuh in Seattle.

Email: kathy-schuh@uiowa.edu
Telephone: 319/335-5667
Web Page: http://faculty.education.uiowa.edu/kschuh

Research with Graduate Assistants:
Dr. Schuh conducts much of her research in upper elementary school classrooms. Working with her on a research project provides a variety of research opportunities including observing in classrooms, interviewing students, developing instructional interventions (including computer-based), analyzing various types of data, and completing the tasks that accompany collection of data that is largely qualitative in nature (data transcription, conversation analysis, use of non-numeric analysis tools, etc.). Through these experiences Dr. Schuh hopes that graduate students will begin to appreciate the various lenses through which classrooms may be studied, understand the many ways in which students can create meaning, and begin to develop means through which learners can be supported in their meaning-making processes.

Walter Vispoel, Professor of Measurement and Statistics (Ph.D., 1987, University of Illinois) conducts research on computerized assessment procedures, measurement of musical aptitude, and aspects of students' self-concepts and attributional beliefs.

Email: walter-vispoel@uiowa.edu
Telephone: 319/335-5576

Donald Yarbrough, Associate Professor of Measurement and Statistics and served as Associate Dean for Graduate Programs, College of Education (Ph.D., 1982, University of Georgia) conducts research related to methods for evaluating educational and social programs.

Email: donald-yarbrough@uiowa.edu
Telephone: 319/335-5391

Research with Graduate Assistants:
Research assistants typically work in a collaborative environment on a variety of evaluation tasks at the College's Center for Evaluation and Assessment. Typical RA activities include collaborative work on the design and implementation of program evaluations, investigations of uses of the Student Evaluation Standards and the Program Evaluation Standards and other methodological and research studies related to student, program, project, and policy evaluation. Recent evaluations include focuses on web-based delivery of training, health careers, elementary school learning, and history and engineering curriculum development. Current projects also include a focus on web-based data collection. Projects currently under review for possible future evaluations focus on minority recruitment efforts and science learning in museum settings. Research assistants work collaboratively on theoretical and applied questions and often have the opportunity over time to co-present conference papers and to collaborate on publications.