Educational Psychology: Research, M.S.

Program Overview

This program offers three pathways: Human Development, Learning Sciences, and Quantitative Methods. It focuses on individual development, learning environments, and statistical techniques in education. Students engage in research and develop skills in communication, analysis, and problem-solving. Graduates pursue careers in education, research, and related fields.

Program Outline

Outline:

Human Development

• Focuses on individual development, with an emphasis on the beginning of the lifespan and formal schooling years (infancy through young adulthood).
• Research seeks to make conceptual/theoretical contributions to the understanding of human behavior that can address practical concerns of educators, parents, and others.
• Special emphasis is placed on considering how diversity in personal backgrounds, contexts, and experiences contribute to the developing person.
• Early in the program, students learn about general theories and issues in human development, specific developmental processes in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood; as well as associated statistical methods and research practices.
• In the latter part of the program, students exercise individual choice in selecting courses in subject matter that will broaden or deepen an understanding of developmental processes.

Learning Sciences

• Bridges learning sciences and educational practice.
• Scholarship encompasses the coordinated design and study of learning environments ranging from preschool to university education, and reaches outside of school to informal contexts for learning, like museums and after-school programs.
• Faculty interests include the design of technologies as tools for learning, prolonged longitudinal study of relations between teaching and learning, the nature of knowledge in substantive domains of inquiry, like mathematics, science, and composition, and the analysis of learning using moment-by-moment data about learning processes.
• The program of study emphasizes an apprenticeship model of scholarship with early engagement in substantive problems of learning and teaching.
• Students work in concert with faculty to develop research studies in each of the first two years of study.
• Courses are coordinated to promote the development of research and communication skills so that students can become involved with important problems in educational research.
• As students progress in the program, they continue to work with faculty, both within and outside of the department, to craft systematic investigations of learning environments.

Quantitative Methods

• Educational research has a strong tradition of employing state-of-the-art statistical and psychometric (psychological measurement) techniques.
• Researchers in all areas of education develop measuring instruments, design and conduct experiments and surveys, and analyze data resulting from these activities.
• Because of this tradition, quantitative methods has long been an area of specialization within educational psychology.
• Graduates in this area teach, serve as consultants to educational researchers, and conduct research on statistics and psychometrics in education-related fields.
• Within the program, the quantitative methods area offers the two major specializations of statistics and measurement.
• The study of quantitative methods takes advantage of the range of resources at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and includes coursework in statistics, mathematics, and computer sciences, and in other units of the School of Education.

Assessment:

Human Development and Quantitative Methods pathways

• A thesis is required.

Learning Sciences pathway

• A major area paper is required.

Teaching:

• The department provides for training in research.
• Many faculty members in the department conduct controlled research studies with human participants; schools and other agencies in the Madison area cooperate in facilitating such research projects.