College of Education and Human Development

Department of Educational Psychology

Research lab: Martin Van Boekel

Focus

Our lab’s research goal is very broad: to gain a better understanding of what supports or gets in the way of student learning. This statement is intentionally vague because our lab has many research interests. The lab currently has two distinct lines of research:

  1.  Happiness in the Closet: A research collaborative focusing on elevating trans and non-binary people’s voices, and
  2. Feedback in the Wild: We focus on academic feedback, and developing student and teachers’ feedback literacy. We are doing this by investigating the cognitive and social factors surrounding the feedback process.

Projects

Happiness in the Closet: Elevating stories and research on trans and non-binary joy

We have an exciting developing program of research in this area. We are currently exploring the following:

  • The intersection of fashion, gender, and wellbeing (both academic and social). In this project, we partnered with someone from the City of Minneapolis and a local designer focused on trans and non-binary clothing.
  • An investigation into factors that lead to trans and/or gender non-conforming students’ reasons for leaving STEM majors
  • Gender Euphoria. We have many ideas surrounding this topic and will update this soon!”
  • To learn more about the many exciting activities we are doing in this space, check out our website “Happiness in the Closet” and our podcast which can be found on Spotify “Happiness in the Closet”

Academic Feedback: Investigating the factors that impact a learner’s ability to take in and use feedback

This program of research is investigating:

  • Presentation and type of feedback (normative, self-referential, etc.)
  • Impact of negative feedback on working memory and emotions, and interventions to mitigate these negative effects
  • The association between various social emotional factors and feedback uptake and receptivity
  • What are students doing as they are processing their feedback, and how do different types of feedback influence their response to the information as they are reading it?
  • How do students and teachers think about feedback? How do these thoughts change across development?
  • What factors mitigate hindsight bias?
  • Why do we experience hindsight bias?
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Memory Strategies: Implementing lessons learned from cognitive psychology in the classroom

Within this area of study, concepts from cognitive psychology are used in authentic classroom situations to examine their impact on student learning. For example:

  • Can Contrasting Cases be used to support students' self-assessment of their assignments?
  • What are students remembering from the feedback they receive (spoiler: it isn't very much) and are there strategies that can be employed to improve memory for feedback (drawing on things like testing effect, goal setting)?

Interventions

Interventions: Enhancing students' and teachers' feedback literacy

We have been deliberate when thinking about our work in feedback to draw heavily on the amazing international research that is happening in this space. When working in schools, we also work directly with teachers and administrators to understand their needs and involve them in the research process.

  • Feedback literacy in schools: Can an intervention aimed at boosting students' understanding of feedback impact their use and perceptions of the feedback process?
  • Wise feedback: Not all students trust the feedback process. Can how we frame feedback impact how students feel about the whole process?
Martin Van Boekel

My research interests involve investigating the factors that facilitate and impede student learning. Factors including our prior knowledge, the feedback we receive, the strategies used to deliver the content, and the conditions we find ourselves in when we are learning.

Research group

Chris Steadman

PhD graduate student, psychological foundations of education

Chris’ research focuses on the interplay between learning and memory, and he is specifically interested in the “bright side of forgetting” or how we direct our forgetting process from both a neurological and behavioral perspective. Increasing our knowledge of this phenomenon allows us to better understand how we learn and remember relevant information, which is key to academic success. With this information, we can improve students' memory of course content and help them become better learners.

Shelby Weisen

MA graduate student, psychological foundations of education

Shelby’s research focuses on the intersection between social and educational elements of psychology with specific interest in collaborative learning, academic feedback, and intercultural competence in undergraduate classrooms. With aims of becoming a professor someday, Shelby aspires to complete research projects that will give her future students a better life.

Will Boomer

Will Boomer

Pronouns: He/Him

Undergraduate student, psychology

Will is a fourth-year undergraduate Psychology student at the University of Minnesota. He is interested in researching LGBTQ+ and first-generation students. Currently, Will is conducting a UROP Research Project which focuses on the experiences of transgender and gender-nonconforming students in the STEM field. Through his work, he hopes to create academic environments with the guidance and resources that were not available to himself.

Annabel Bruton

Annabel Bruton

Pronouns: She/Her

Undergraduate student, psychology

Annabel is finishing her final semester as an undergraduate Psychology student at the University of Minnesota, with minors in Applied Psychology in Education and Community Settings and Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature. Annabel is interested in researching queer joy, gender euphoria, and wellbeing. Outside of her research, Annabel also works as a teaching assistant and student resource supervisor. After graduating, she hopes to work as an academic advisor and pursue a Master's degree in Higher Education.