Geoffrey Maruyama

First in the World Grant website

I am a professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Minnesota.  My primary research has focused on achievement processes in schools, particularly on social processes and on antecedents of educational success; on research methods for educational and other applied settings; and, recently, on action research approaches in challenged communities and engaged scholarship in urban settings.  I have written three books, Basics of Structural Equation Modeling, Research in Educational Settings (with Stanley Deno), and, most recently, Research Methods in Social Relations (8th edition, with Carey Ryan), and numerous articles and chapters. 

My interest in what happens in diverse urban schools began when I became involved in a study of school desegregation while in graduate school. Those interests led me to study a range of issues in schools, including school schedules and structures, teaching approaches such as cooperative learning and conflict resolution, social influence processes, and student background characteristics including poverty, type of housing in which the family lived, language, ability, and race/ethnicity. This work has been facilitated by time I spent in the Saint Paul Public Schools as their director of research, evaluation and assessment. Recently, my work has expanded beyond schools to look more broadly at how universities engage urban communities to build partnerships addressing key social issues.   I have complemented my substantive interests with methodology interests in structural equation methods, research methods, and program evaluation.

I have held administrative roles that have enriched and informed my research interests, including director of the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement (CAREI), assistant/associate vice president for multicultural and academic affairs, and associate vice president for system academic administration.  I am a past-president and past secretary treasurer of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI), and edited one of their journals, Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy. I am a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Psychological Society.  My PhD and MA degrees are from the University of Southern California in social psychology, and my BA from Macalester College in psychology.

Courses I teach

• EPSY 5-157—Social Psychology of Education
• EPSY 8266—Statistical Analysis Using Structural Equation Methods
• EPsy 8-157—Key Topics and Issues in Applying Social Psychology to Education
• EPSY 8-216—Seminar: Research Processes in Psychological Foundations of Education