Rankings and awards – psychological foundations/QME

The College of Education and Human Development has consistently ranked among the best professional schools of education in the U.S. In the 2010 U.S.News & World Report rankings the Department of Educational Psychology was ranked 7th best in the U.S. in the most recent rankings.

Although rankings for the psychological foundations and quantitative methods tracks are not available, the program is distinguished by the success enjoyed by its faculty and graduates.

2007 APA Award

The Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Minnesota was awarded the 2007 APA Innovative Practices in Graduate Education in Psychology Award for preparing doctoral students for academic positions which include teaching statistics. This program that prepares graduate students to become excellent teachers of statistics is the only program of its kind in the United States. Read more at "Statistically speaking, they are ahead of the curve."

Students

PsyF/QME graduate student awards in leadership, teaching, and research

Graduates

Somwung Pitiyanuwat, director of the Office of National Standards and Quality Assessment in Thailand, received the College’s first Distinguished International Alumni Award in 1997, and the University’s Outstanding Achievement Award in 2004.

Faculty

Learning and cognition/educational technology

Jay Samuels is one of the best known researchers and experts on reading in the world. In addition to his numerous publications, Dr. Samuels has been elected to the Reading Hall of Fame. His research interests include the development of materials and methods for improving word recognition, fluency, comprehension, and research on how to facilitate the young reader's understanding of moral themes. Dr. Samuels has also won the College of Education and Human Development's Distinguished Teaching Award and in 2007 received the Minnesota Academy of Reading (MAR) Award for his distinguished career and significant contributions to the field of literacy as an educational researcher and literacy educator. 

William Bart has published numerous studies on cognitive diagnostic testing and on the relationship between knowledge and reasoning relationship, and is currently pursuing research on the development of critical thinking and other reasoning skills among college students and adults, the cognitive benefits of educational software and the utility of origami and other Japanese educational activities on the development of spatial reasoning among American children. Dr. Bart is a Fellow of the American Psychological Society and has won the College's Distinguished Teaching Award.

Bob Tennyson has published many papers on cognitive learning and complex cognitive processes, intelligent systems, simulations, testing and measurement, instructional design, and advanced learning technologies, and is currently editor of the scientific journal Computers in Human Behavior.

Social psychological and social developmental processes in educational psychology

David W. Johnson  is one of the most influential social psychologists in the world, with numerous research papers and books. Dr. Johnson's research interest focus on cooperative, competitive, and individualistic efforts; conflict resolution (structured controversy and peer mediation), and social psychology of groups. Dr. David W. Johnson and Dr. Roger Johnson, professor of curriculum and instruction, won the 2007 Brock International Prize in Education, which recognizes individuals for innovative and effective ideas in education. Their selection marks the first time in the award's six-year history that two individuals have been chosen as recipients. The brothers are co-founders and co-directors of the College's Cooperative Learning Center. Dr. Johnson received the 2008 Distinguished Contributions to Education Award from the American Educational Research Association (AERA).

Geoffrey Maruyama has published numerous papers on social influence processes in schools, cooperative learning and constructive controversy, and school structures that focus on finding ways to improve student outcomes in heterogeneous schools. Dr. Maruyama has also published the book Basics of Structural Equation Modeling.

Tony Pellegrini  is a well-known expert in observational research methods, children's peer relations, and social contextual influences on classroom achievement. Dr. Pellegrini has published many articles and books in these areas, and is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. 

Quantitative methods in education

Ernest Davenport has published several papers examining mathematical artifacts of statistical procedures, especially those used in measurement. Dr. Davenport has also won the College of Education and Human Development's Community Service Award and the University of Minnesota’s 2007 Outstanding Community Service Award for his work preparing groups for the ACT/SAT exams.

Mark Davison's expertise in measurement in general, and multidimensional scaling in particular, is nationally recognized. He is currently co-director of the Minnesota Interdisciplinary Training in Educational Research (MITER) program. MITER is one of ten federally funded pre-doctoral training programs preparing a new generation of researchers whose ability to apply experimental methodology and cognitive sciences to practical educational issues will place them at the forefront of research and academic endeavors worldwide. In addition to many research papers, Dr. Davison has published the book Multidimensional Scaling.

Robert delMas has published several papers on the development of students' statistical understanding and reasoning. He has been a co-investigator with Joan Garfield on several NSF-funded projects that have developed software, curriculum, and assessment materials for teaching introductory statistics. He is the author of a simulation tool, Sampling SIM, that can help students develop a conceptual understanding of sampling distributions. Bob delMas and Martha Bigelow (curriculum and instruction) were two of four co-authors who received the 2007 Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Award for Distinguished Research for their paper "Literacy and the Processing of Oral Recasts in Second Language Acquisition," published in the December 2006 issue of the TESOL Quarterly.

Joan Garfield is a well-known scholar in how students learn statistics and has won the Morse-Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of Educational Psychology, the College of Education and Human Development’s Distinguished Teaching Award, and the 2005-06 Award for Outstanding Contributions to Graduate and Professional Education. Dr. Garfield received a lifetime achievement award from the Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education (CAUSE) in May 2007. She is also a fellow of the American Statistical Association and an elected member of the International Statistical Institute.

Michael Harwell has published papers in nonparametric statistics, meta-analysis, and measurement. Dr. Harwell has also studied the effectiveness of educational models purporting to increase student learning by increasing teaching quality via intensive professional development activities.

Frances Lawrenz's work in evaluation and science education in particular has made her a nationally known figure in these arenas. In addition to her many grants from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Lawrenz has published several papers on program evaluation. Dr. Lawrenz has won the College of Education and Human Development’s Gordon M. A. Mork Outstanding Educator and the Robert H. Beck Faculty Teaching Awards and is a University of Minnesota award recipient for Outstanding Contributions to Graduate and Professional Education.

Jeff Long has expertise in methods of longitudinal data analysis and in the application of multivariate methods to ordinal data, and has published papers in several journals in quantitative methods. Dr. Long has also regularly applied his statistical expertise to substantive topics in psychology, such as validating instruments designed to assess various clinical disorders.

Michael Rodriguez has expertise in understanding the psychometric properties of tests, such as the effects of item formats and the use of constructed-response versus multiple-choice items, and in methods for improving the way that schools use large-scale test information for planning and evaluation purposes. Dr. Rodriguez has also conducted several validity studies of Latino youth development program evaluation instruments. Dr. Rodriguez is a recipient of the College of Education and Human Development’s Community Service Award; the Robert H. Beck Faculty Teaching Award; and the University of Minnesota's 2009 Award for Outstanding Contributions to Postbaccalaureate, Graduate, and Professional Education; and is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Council on Measurement in Education.

Collectively, these faculty have a distinguished teaching and research record that speaks to the high quality of the psychological foundations/QME programs.

February 2009