Undergraduate Research Assistants Spring 2012:
Magen Rooney, Sarah Davis, Rick Leonard, Jamila Broachwala, Kareyma Hope, Stephanie Blakeslee, Melissa Pasierb, Anais Arias

Undergraduate Research Assistants Fall 2011:
Melissa Meinders, Magen Rooney, Caroline Terazawa, Sarah Davis, Samantha Hicks, Rick Leonard, Alyssa Secreto, Dimitar Paunov, Robert Hickson, Harleen Saini, Anna Mankowska, Jamila Broachwala

Undergraduate Research Assistants Spring 2011:
Dan Aiello, Krishna Amin, Jessica Pinto, Joanne Karachristos, Melissa Meinders, Mimi Nguyen, Magen Rooney, Caroline Terazawa, Sarah Davis, Samantha Hicks, Rick Leonard, Alyssa Secreto, Dimitar Paunov, Rachelle Fiorito, Helina Washkowiak, Reema Abuzir, Ramen Dhami

Undergraduate Research Assistants Fall 2010:
Dan Aiello, Nicole Rivera, Krishna Amin, Jessica Pinto, Rachelle Fiorito, Joanne Karachristos, Melissa Meinders, Mimi Nguyen, Magen Rooney, Maritza Del Real

Undergraduate Research Assistants Summer 2010:
Caicina Jones, Jessica Flores

Undergraduate Research Assistants Spring 2010:
Dan Aiello, Andrew Cho, Michelle Evans, Ilse Salinas, Angela Sourounis, Caicina Jones, Nicole Rivera, Arti Sarup, Krishna Amin, Natalia Olejarska, Anisa Chohan, Jessica Pinto

Undergraduate Research Assistants Fall 2009:
Dan Aiello, Amber Budhwani, Andrew Cho, Michelle Evans, Arina Ratner, Ilse Salinas, Angela Sourounis, Muhammad Haq, Hassan Noorani, Michelle Madison

Undergraduate Research Assistants Spring 2009:
Toral Patel, Erik Schuster, Erin Strand, Natalie Kats, Stephanie Stolen, Jennifer Suk, Arina Ratner, Zaineb Darabu, Camille Spurgeon

Undergraduate Research Assistants Fall 2008:
Kelly Painter, Toral Patel, Erik Schuster, Rak Mehta, Jonathan Jackson, Zaineb Darabu, Sarah Browne

Undergraduate Research Assistants Summer 2008:
Erik Schuster, Carlos Salas

Current Funding and Projects:
READi: Reading and Evidence-Based Argumentation in Disciplinary Instruction
Co-PIs: Thomas Griffin & Jennifer Wiley  (PI: Susan Goldman)
Primary Collaborator: Anne Britt, Psychology, NIU
As part of the IES Reading for Understanding Network initiative, a large team of researchers including Susan Goldman, Jim Pellegrino, Thomas Griffin and Jennifer Wiley at UIC will be researching how to improve reading comprehension among middle and high school students within the disciplines of science, history and literature.  Wiley and Griffin, along with Anne Britt of NIU, are cheifly resposible for basic cognitive research in learning from multiple sources in science and history.
Katie McCarthy, Graduate Research Assistant
Carlos Salas, Graduate Research Assistant
Andrew Taylor, Graduate Research Assistant
Sarah Davis, Undergraduate Research Assistant

Improving Metacomprehension and Self-Regulated Learning from Scientific Texts
PIs: Jennifer Wiley, Thomas Griffin, Psychology, UIC and Keith Thiede, Educational Psychology, Boise State
Consultant: John Dunlosky, Kent State University
Allison Jaeger, Graduate Research Assistant
Andrew Jarosz, Graduate Research Assistant
Carlos Salas, Graduate Research Assistant
(Past collaborators: Jason Braasch, Pat Cushen, Scott Hinze, Travis Ricks)

In this IES funded project, we are investigating whether and when students can make accurate judgements of their own understanding of scientific texts. The current grant on this topic is looking at how practice tests, reading instructions and feedback on both test performance and metacomprehension accuracy can improve metacomprehension skill in the context of a semester-long course.  We are also extending our work into middle school grades.  Jason Braasch and Scott Hinze have both collaborated on projects related to this grant, including investigating how practice tests may affect later performance on tests of comprehension, and the connection between individual differences in metacomprehension skill and the ability to notice contradictions. For more information on findings and publications, see the grant page linked above. The previous grant (03-07) is described here: Metacomprehension and Learning from Science Text.

REESE: Supporting Whole-Class Investigations with Spatial Simulations in Science (SWISS)
Tom Moher, PI, Computer Science, UIC
Co-PIs: Jennifer Wiley (Psychology), Joel Brown (Biology) and Debi Kilb (UCSD)
Allison Jaeger, Graduate Research Assistant

This NSF-funded project explores how the temporal and spatial embeddness of simulation activities can improve learning about complex scientific phenomena (earthquakes and ecosystems).

CAREER: Costs and Benefits of Small Group Problem Solving
Mindy Jensen, Research Specialist (now in PhD program at UIUC)
Pat Cushen, Graduate Research Assistant (now at CASL, UMd)
Olga Goldenberg, Graduate Research Assistant
Andrew Jarosz, Graduate Research Assistant
Ryan Leach, Graduate Research Assistant
Michael Wiedmann, Graduate Research Assistant (Now in PhD program, Universitat Freiburg)
Thomas Griffin, Research Professor

This project is investigating the specific group processes and behaviors that may lead to positive gains from group work.  Pat Cushen and Andy Jarosz are interested generally in effective problem solving and assist on studies related to this grant. Olga Goldenberg, Ryan Leach, and Michael Wiedmann are generally interested in effective collaboration. Thomas Griffin is a collaborator on the investigation of group activities in a course context.

Executive Function and Alcohol Use: Precursors and Consequences
PIs: Jennifer Wiley (Collaborator: Dr. Jon Kassel, Psychology, UIC)
Greg Colflesh, now PostDoc at GaTech
Andy Jarosz, Graduate Research Assistant
Dan Aiello, Visiting Research Specialist

Several projects explore the effects of alcohol use on cognition using a battery of attention, problem solving and executive function tasks.  Greg Colflesh investigated these ideas in his dissertation studies, which also received support through an APA Dissertation Award.  Dan Aiello has received a Kabbes Award for Undergraduate Research, the Hirschberg Award and an LASURI fellowship to complete a related study with new attention tasks.  Andy Jarosz has recieved a Psi Chi Graduate Research Award for the problem solving portion of the work.

Individual Differences in Working Memory Capacity

Andy Jarosz, Graduate Research Assistant
Pat Cushen, Graduate Research Assistant (now at CASL, UMD)
Thomas Griffin, Research Professor, UIC
Mindy Jensen, Research Specialist (now in PhD Program at UIUC)
Tim Miura, now at Loyola University, Chicago.
Greg Colflesh, now Post Doc at GaTech
Travis Ricks, now at MSU
Scott Hinze, now Post Doc at Northwestern
Chris Sanchez, now Asst Professor at Arizona State
Ivan Ash, now Asst Professor at ODU
Andy Conway, now at Princeton University, Collaborator

We have investigated the effects of individual differences in working memory capacity on attentional tasks (Colflesh, Hinze & Miura), problem solving (Ash, Cushen, Colflesh, Jarosz & Ricks), skill acquisition (Hinze) and text comprehension (Sanchez & Ricks).  We have also explored WMC in bilingual populations (Sanchez, Miura, Cushen), and individual differences in WMC in the context of metacomprehension tasks (Griffin), and the separable contributions of spatial ability and working memory on some tasks (Cushen).

Causal Models, Text Comprehension, and Decision Making
Tom Trabasso, University of Chicago (deceased)
Ivan Ash, Now at ODU

Before Tom Trabasso passed away, we started collaborating on several lines of research investigating how causality-based representations of texts can explain several decision making effects (availability, simulation, hindsight).  Ivan Ash elaborated on these ideas in his dissertation on hindsight bias.

Ash, I. K. (2009). Surprise, memory, and retrospective judgment making: Testing cognitive reconstruction theories of the hindsight bias effect. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition.

Trabasso, T. & Wiley, J. (2009) What happens at reunions? Exploring causal connections and their role in reunion effects. Discourse Processes, 46, 269-308.

Trabasso, T. & Wiley, J. (2005) Goal plans of action and inferences during comprehension of narratives. Discourse Processes, 39, 129-164.

Previous Funding and Projects:

ROLE: Taking a Critical Stance on Internet Sources (2001-4)
Susan Goldman, Co- PI, UIC
Art Graesser, Co- PI, University of Memphis
Chris Sanchez, now Asst Professor at Arizona State
Ivan Ash, now Asst Professor at Old Dominion University

In this project we investigated how readers learn from multiple internet sources on scientific subject matter, and what specific digital literacy skills they need before they can benefit from online research tasks.  The short answer is that learning from the internet relies on the ability to discriminate reliable from unreliable information.   The first major report of this work is now available:

Wiley, J., Goldman, S., Graesser, A., Sanchez. C., Ash,  I. & Hemmerich, J. (2009) Source evaluation, comprehension, and learning in internet science inquiry tasks. American Educational Research Journal.

Chris Sanchez helped with this project. His interests are more generally in learning from text, images and the web. He designed the reliability training exercise that was effective for improving learning from online sources. He is now a faculty member at ASU.  Ivan Ash assisted with the original design of the websites and the first set of eyetracking studies.  His main research interests are in decision making and problem solving, and generally how people build representations of problems.  He is now a faculty member at ODU.

Metacomprehension and Learning from Science Text  (2003-7)
PIs: Jennifer Wiley and Keith Thiede, Educational Psychology, Boise State
Thomas Griffin, Research Professor, UIC
Consultant: John Dunlosky, Kent State University

In this IES funded project, we investigated whether and when students can make accurate judgements of their own understanding of scientific texts and found substantial improvements using delayed summary and keyword tasks, as well as self-explantation and re-reading tasks.  Please see the grant page linked above for more information on our results and publications.

ROLE: Making the Invisible Visible: Children and Teachers Learning about Physical States and State Changes (2005-8)
Nancy Stein, PI, University of Chicago
Tom Trabasso, University of Chicago (now deceased, replaced on grant by Jim Pellegrino)
Florencia Anggoro, Post Doctoral Research Fellow (now faculty at Holy Cross)
Melinda Jensen, Research Specialist (now in PhD program at UIUC)

In this project we are investgating how articulating the important causal relations underlying a scientific phenomena (how water changes to ice and gas) improves elementary school students' understanding of the content.  Similarly, we are investigating how depicting important relations in static drawings and animations improves comprehension.  Mindy Jensen also assisted with this project.

    Experts as Goal-Based Problem Solvers (2002-4)
Ben Jee, Pre-doctoral Fellow (Postdoc, Northwestern University now faculty at Holy Cross).
Ben Jee is interested in expertise and how it primes concepts in memory, as well as how the experience of problem solving in a domain contributes to expert knowledge and categorization. Ben received an NSERC Fellowship and a University Fellowship to support this research.

Jee, B. & Wiley, J. (2007) How goals affect the organization and use of domain knowledge. Memory & Cognition, 35, 837-51.

ONR: Learning from Web Pages: Images and Overviews (2000-2003)
Chris Sanchez,  now Asst Professor at Arizona State

Chris Sanchez was a collaborator on this grant examining learning from web pages by looking at the effects of overviews, images, and scrolling on the understanding of complex subject matter.

Sanchez, C. & Wiley, J. (2006) Effects of working memory capacity on learning from illustrated text. Memory & Cognition, 34(2), 344-355.

Wiley, J. (2003) Cognitive and educational implications of visually-rich media: Images and imagination. In M. Hocks and M. Kendrick (Eds.) Eloquent images: Word and Image in the Age of New Media. MIT Press.

Wiley, J. (2001) Supporting understanding through task and browser design. Proceedings of the Twenty-third annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, (pp. 1136-1143). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Paul G. Allen Virtual Education Foundation: Impacts of Browser Design on Learning (2000-2010)
Ivan Ash,  now Asst Professor at ODU
Chris Sanchez,  now Asst Professor at Arizona State

Ivan Ash and Chris Sanchez assisted with projects on the effects of individual differences in prior knowledge and working memory capacity on learning from web pages and how the design of pages affects the understanding of complex subject matter.

Wiley, J. & Ash, I. (2005) Multimedia learning in history.  In R. Mayer (Ed.) The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (pp. 375-391). Cambridge University Press.

Wiley, J., Sanchez, C. & Moher, T. (2005) Research in instructional technology. In J. M. Royer (Ed.), The Impact of the Cognitive Revolution on Educational Psychology (pp. 231-248). Information Age Publishing: Greenwich, CT.

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