Research topics: Mathematical thinking
Investigating how people understand mathematics
Mathematics is the language of science, engineering, technology, finance, and many other professions and institutions. For these reasons, investigating how people understand mathematics, how to identify individuals who are exceptional or at-risk for difficulties, and how best to teach mathematics are critical questions for our researchers. We address these questions from a variety of perspectives in research projects spanning from the laboratory to the classroom to online contexts.
Faculty
William Bart
Bart (psychological foundations of education) investigates the cognitive and educational effects of origami training, a form of school-based instruction commonplace in Israel and East Asian countries such as Japan and Korea. Origami training facilitates understanding of key mathematical concepts in geometry such as shape congruence.
Jeffrey Bye
Bye researches cognitive science, learning science, and educational psychology approaches to understanding how people learn and think about math, data, and programming.
Andrew Zieffler
Zieffler (quantitative methods in education) is a statistics education researcher investigating how students understand statistical concepts such as sampling variability and the logic of statistical inference. He is also developing innovative curricula for teaching statistics to college students from a modern, simulation-oriented perspective, as well as assessments for measuring students’ statistical reasoning and understanding.