Psychological Foundations of Education

Graduate study in psychological foundations prepares students for a variety of research and teaching positions in colleges and universities, schools, private industry, human service organizations, health care units, government agencies, and other research and development centers. Graduates are typically employed as professors, researchers, directors of testing, instructional designers, evaluation specialists, planning officers, statisticians, and computer software designers. Students may specialize in any of the seven sub-areas listed below as well as achieve broad competencies in all aspects of the curriculum.

Learning and cognition students focus on research in decision making, problem solving, intelligence, text comprehension, technology-enhanced learning, mathematical and causal reasoning, teaching effectiveness, cognitive diagnostic testing, and software evaluation.

Measurement and evaluation students study methodological areas such as measurement theory, scaling, and applied test construction, including test development, validation, and application in educational settings. Additionally, many students include an emphasis in program evaluation: analyzing, planning, implementing, and reporting results.

Personality students focus on issues such as moral development, college student development, and adult development. Research and theory on these topics are related to the analysis of problems in educational settings.

Social psychology students concentrate on the study of how social psychological forces affect processes and outcomes in schools and other educational settings. Topics within this area address social influence processes, group dynamics, methods of organizational change and conflict resolution, and cooperative learning.

Statistics and research design students focus on understanding, evaluating, and improving a wide variety of statistical methods used in applied educational research. Students examine issues in experimental design, multivariate methods, and meta-analysis. They conduct studies using analytical, empirical, qualitative, and computational methods.

Educational technology students study advanced systems to improve learning through mediated delivery systems. Topics studied include interactive learning, dynamic-based simulations, software and courseware design, adaptive learning systems, and technology system evaluation methodologies.

Human relations students examine basic processes of human interaction, particularly as they are affected by race, ethnicity, gender, age, disabilities, etc. Students study issues of social influence processes, conflict resolution, small group theory, diversity in education, power in relationship, and group learning techniques.

Students are assigned an adviser from a faculty internationally known for its excellence in both research and teaching. Each faculty member is committed to engaging students in research from the beginning of their graduate study.