Doctoral candidates in WPI’s Interdisciplinary Learning Sciences & Technologies program merge social science and educational psychology with computer science to forge inroads into improving educational processes and outcomes both in and out of schools. Our research propels high-quality educational research and technology forward with world-renowned faculty and well-funded and supported research opportunities that help bridge the gap between research, practice, and policy.
WPI’s program researches the intersections of psychology, educational technology, and classroom interventions from many perspectives, and you’ll be able to find your exact fit here. Your research might include testing cognitive theories of learning, assessing if children react best to video or text feedback while they’re doing homework, or exploring how teachers, schools, or communities can better impact educational outcomes.
Breakthroughs like these keep the nation’s education and technology systems globally competitive, but, more important, they improve student performance, motivation, and confidence.
Using a blend of Cognitive, Developmental, and Educational Psychology, Advanced Quantitative Methods, and Computer Science courses, you’ll develop a broad understanding of learning theories, and learn how to best determine what kinds of learning environments and curricular experiences lead to improved learning.
Students will lead original research examining theoretical and applied questions about how educational technology can make teaching and learning easier and more effective for both students and teachers. WPI’s rigorous scientific and technical backdrop means you’ll have the knowledge behind learning and the tools to interpret and use the produced data to improve how students learn with individualized methods.
In addition to course work and dissertation work that leads to an area of expertise, doctoral students must demonstrate their competency in data analysis and written communication.
Rigorous and applied research that impacts educational settings, particularly in K-12 STEM areas, is at the core of our Learning Sciences & Technologies program. Each of our distinct labs focuses on the bigger picture of understanding how kids learn and helping teachers implement those changes to improve learning in and out of the classroom.
Department research:
Our research labs and collaborations with a network of local K-12 STEM classrooms allow you to work directly with faculty, teachers, students, and technology. You’ll access three interdisciplinary labs including those used by Psychology, Computer Science, and Interactive Game and Media Development students. You’ll also have access to WPI’s valuable STEM Education Center, which supports a community of local STEM educators with networking events and educational opportunities.
A true hybrid across disciplines, professor Arroyo specializes in Learning Sciences, Computer Science and Educational/Cognitive Psychology. Her expertise is in the design of novel technologies for learning and assessment for mathematics, for students throughout the
K-12 level.
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In both teaching and research, I'm fascinated by how people understand systems and concepts. I love teaching introductory courses, with their challenge to help students gain the perspective of a new field. My research touches on various topics at the intersection of people and how they understand computational systems.
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Neil T. Heffernan enjoys doing educational data mining and running the ASSISTments system. ASSISTments helps schools teach better. It’s a web service hosted at WPI that allows teachers to assign nightly homework or daily class work. Students get instant feedback while teachers get live reports. Professor Heffernan enjoys supervising WPI students in creating ASSISTments content and features. He has 6 dozens paper in educational data mining, and 20+ papers in comparing different ways to optimize student learning.
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Erin Ottmar is an assistant professor of psychology and learning sciences at WPI. She received her BA in psychology and elementary education from the University of Richmond. After college, she spent several years teaching in Ecuador and Japan. In 2011, she received her PhD in Educational Psychology: Applied Developmental Science from the University of Virginia. After graduate school, returned to a small liberal arts environment and spent 3 years as a post-doctoral research scientist at the University of Richmond.
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My research interests are in applied machine learning, computer vision, data science and their applications to education, affective computing, and human behavior recognition. My work is highly interdisciplinary and frequently intersects cognitive science, psychology, and education. Before joining WPI, I was a research scientist at the Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning at Harvard University. In 2012, I co-founded Emotient, a San Diego-based startup company for automatic emotion and facial expression recognition.
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Joseph Beck, assistant professor of Computer Science, has been at WPI since 2007. His research focuses on educational data mining, a new discipline that develops techniques for analyzing large educational data sets to make discoveries that will improve teaching and learning. His work centers on estimating how computer tutors impact learning. He established the first workshop in the field and in 2008 was program co-chair of the first International Conference on Educational Data Mining.
[...]Program graduates hit the ground running in the educational research and technology fields. Your extensive research and classroom experience—combined with your deep knowledge of educational and cognitive theory, large-scale data analysis, and technology design and development—means your skills will be sought after for academic roles, consulting, industry, and entrepreneurial positions.
