Broadly, I am interested in how children and adults think, learn, and solve problems. More specifically, my research examines how children develop mathematical understanding, and the features of instruction that might contribute to the depth of children's conceptual knowledge. I am particularly interested in ways of leveraging learners' prior knowledge (what they already know) to help them learn difficult new concepts. For example, my research shows that children can learn from analogies between familiar and new concepts, and even practicing with familiar concepts immediately before solving similar, more difficult problems can be helpful. I also study how children and adults learn from examples, including the roles of self-explanation, diagrams and pictures, and comparison in math concept learning. In a related line of research, I am examining how (and when) learners' attitudes and anxiety about math affect how they solve problems or learn from instruction. More recently, I have been exploring students' sense of belonging in mathematics with colleagues in Mathematics, STEM Education, and Learning Sciences.
In addition to my primary research, I support my fantastic PhD students (Kat Brown and Sam Pearl) in investigating a range of questions related to the development and treatment of mathematics anxiety. Undergraduate students in my lab are currently working on studies related to learning from feedback, the model minority myth among Asian American students, effects of music on cognition, and adolescents' understanding numerical health information.
