Daniel H. Robinson

• PhD 1993 University of Nebraska
• K-16 Mind, Brain and Education Endowed Chair at The University of Texas at Arlington

Classroom lighting, when set to high luminous (lx) and cooler correlated color temperature (CCT) conditions, can increase student focus, concentration, and oral reading fluency (Mott et al., 2012; 2014). However, when illuminance is too high and color temperature is too cool, irritating and adverse effects can occur such as visual fatigue and eyest...

Cognitive load theory (CLT) has driven numerous empirical studies for over 30 years and is a major theme in many of the most cited articles published between 1988 and 2023. However, CLT articles have not been compared to other educational psychology research in terms of the research designs used and the extent to which recommendations for practice...

Over the past 30 years, several reviews have examined scholarly contributions of individual researchers and institutions in the field of educational psychology (Fong et al., Educational Psychology Review 34:2379–2403, 2022; Greenbaum et al., Educational Psychology Review 28:215–223, 2016; Hsieh et al., Contemporary Educational Psychology 29:333–343...

To date, there have been four responses (Dumas & Edelsbrunner, Educational Psychology Review, 35, 48, 2023; Grosz, Educational Psychology Review, 35, 57, 2023; Mayer, Educational Psychology Review, 35, 64, 2023; Zitzmann et al., Educational Psychology Review, 35, 65, 2023) to the Brady et al. (Educational Psychology Review, 35, 36–37, 2023) observa...

https://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/standardized-admission-tests-fairer-than-other-measures-not-biased/

The field of educational psychology has been moving away from intervention and experimental methods and toward observational and correlational methods (Hsieh et al., Journal of Educational Psychology, 97(4), 523–529, 2005; Reinhart et al., Journal of Educational Psychology, 105(1), 241–247, 2013; Robinson et al., American Educational Research Journ...

The authors of this essay consider the costs of the errors that occur in any kind of decision making. In a binary decision there are always two kinds of errors that can be made – saying ‘yes’ when you should have said ‘no’ (a false positive) or saying ‘no’ when you should have said ‘yes’ (a false negative). Choosing a decision-making strategy by si...

The claim that women have been underrepresented as authors, editorial board members (EBMs), and editors in educational psychology journals relevant to organizational membership was first made 25 years ago (Robinson et al., 1998). Since then, follow-up studies have found that women have made gains in each of these areas but still lag behind membersh...

This book is intended to be sort of a Chicken Soup for the educational academic’s soul. But, in the spirit of the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), this book is more of a Bloody Mary for the AERA attendee’s soul. As you likely know, one of the many suggested cures for a hangover is a Bloody Mary (it may not cur...

This study updates and extends prior work on institutional and individual productivity in educational psychology journals (Cognition and Instruction, Contemporary Educational Psychology, Educational Psychologist, Educational Psychology Review, Journal of Educational Psychology) from 2015 to 2021. As in previous studies, the University of Maryland,...

The Covid‐19 pandemic led many US colleges to drop requirements for admissions tests. Daniel Robinson and Howard Wainer consider what the consequences of this decision might be – for students and universities The Covid‐19 pandemic led many US colleges to drop requirements for admissions tests. Daniel Robinson and Howard Wainer consider what the con...

Two-stage testing (TST) involves individual testing followed by taking the same test in teams. Previously, Vogler and Robinson (The Journal of Experimental Education, 84(4), 787–803, 2016) found that TST facilitated individual performance. The present study addressed methodological limitations in the Vogler and Robinson study in two replications al...

Classroom response systems (i.e., clickers) have become increasingly popular to facilitate student learning. Unfortunately, the common practice of pausing a lecture to ask questions takes up precious time to cover content. Asking questions “on the fly” without pausing is a possible solution. But can students both attend to lecture and answer questi...

Learning styles have been around for several years, becoming most popular beginning in the 1970s. Several inventories have been developed to measure learning styles. Although students may indeed have preferences concerning the modality in which they prefer to receive instruction, there is no evidence that students have a certain learning style that...

In an article published in an open-access journal, (Pennebaker et al. PLoS One, 8 (11), e79774, 2013) reported that an innovative computer-based system that included daily online testing resulted in better student performance in other concurrent courses and a reduction in achievement gaps between lower and upper middle-class students. This article...

We sought to identify factors that optimize individual learning in complex, technology-enhanced learning environments. Undergraduates viewed tutorials and played a simulation-based game either alone or in groups and in either high or low cognitive load sequences and later took tests measuring comprehension of tutorials and transfer of computer netw...

During the pandemic, testing large numbers of high school graduates safely was a task of insuperable difficulty. Having students take the tests remotely was not a reliable option, as monitoring for cheating was not possible. As a result, about 600 colleges decided to suspend the requirement of admission test scores as part of the application proces...

The Table 1 in the original version of this article contained mistakes, and the authors would like to correct them. The correct details are given below: © 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

The Cambridge Handbook of Cognition and Education - edited by John Dunlosky February 2019

Cambridge Core - Cognition - The Cambridge Handbook of Cognition and Education - edited by John Dunlosky

This article examines top-producing female authors, editors, and editorial board members in five educational psychology journals (i.e., Cognition and Instruction, Contemporary Educational Psychology, Educational Psychologist, Educational Psychology Review, and Journal of Educational Psychology) from 2009 to 2016. Results extend data from four previ...

This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note...

Many studies have shown that retrieval practice improves learning in various settings. Similarly, other studies have shown that offering incentives improves learning, whereas test anxiety inhibits learning. Few studies have examined the possible combined effects of incentives and test anxiety when examining retrieval practice. The current study man...

A step-based tutoring system is being developed to improve student learning in elementary linear circuit analysis courses. The approach is based on the known importance of viewing worked examples or solutions in alternation with problem-solving exercises of the same type, to avoid excessive cognitive loads when learning a new skill. The system can...

Purpose The purpose of this editorial is to introduce the special issue, “The Quest for Scientific Discipline in HRD Research: Designs that Support Causal Inference”. Design/methodology/approach This special issue presents seven papers that consider human resource development (HRD) research though the lens of scientific rigor, as well as technique...

Journal of Experimental Education

This article examines the productivity of both individuals and institutions, indexed through an examination of five educational psychology journals (Cognition and Instruction, Contemporary Educational Psychology, Educational Psychologist, Educational Psychology Review, and Journal of Educational Psychology) from 2009 to 2014. These results are disc...

In two experiments, 90 undergraduates took six tests as part of an educational psychology course. Using a crossover design, students took three tests individually without feedback and then took the same test again, following the process of team-based testing (TBT), in teams in which the members reached consensus for each question and answered until...

Richard (Dick) Clark was born in Howell, Michigan (near Detroit), on September 15, 1940. He attended Western Michigan University where he received his bachelor’s degree in political science and history in 1962. He received his master’s degree in mass communication from the new Annenberg School of Mass Communications at the University of Pennsylvani...

The development, expansion, and assessment of a step-based computer-aided tutoring system to teach linear circuit analysis is described. Circuit problems and fully worked, error-free solutions to same are created automatically and randomly with any desired characteristics, varying both the layout and numerical values. Students therefore have access...

The number of educational or serious games (SGs) available to educators has increased in recent years as the cost of game development has been reduced. A benefit of SGs is that they employ not only lesson content but also knowledge contexts where learners can connect information to its context of use with active participation and engagement. This,...

Some possible barriers to student success in introductory linear circuit analysis courses are analyzed, particularly for DC circuits and general circuit topology issues. We argue that certain concepts actually needed to solve circuit problems are often not taught as explicit principles, and that conventional instruction often fails to address typic...

The universality of the impact of daylight is a common thread that defines humanity. Day light affects us in a variety of ways -visually, psychologically and biologically. Artificial lighting research has explored ways in which artificial lighting may substitute for daylight and enhance human health and wellbeing. Recently, a study by Mott et al. 2...

The current status of a computer-based tutorial system that uses a step-based tutoring approach to teach elementary linear circuit analysis is described. The system features automatic problem generation (varying both element values and circuit topology) and solution of those circuits by a variety of methods, including node and mesh analysis and cur...

In three experiments, we examined the effects of directed forgetting messages on item recall. Using a variety of materials and conditions, we observed no main effects of such messages on recall. However, analyses of question and feedback study time, response certitude, and conditional probability revealed a number of significant effects. Effects of...

The argument is made that increasing enrollments and graduation rates cannot occur while maintaining academic standards. Several U.S. universities are attempting to increase their enrollments to counter the financial difficulties created by a reduction in state support. These same universities are also under growing pressure from their state legisl...

In three experiments using crossover designs, we investigated the effects of Classroom Response Systems (CRS) when presenting multiple-choice questions in real classrooms. In Experiment 1, students either used CRS for bonus points or simply saw the questions. There were no differences on a unit exam. In Experiment 2, students were told prior to a u...

We appreciate the thoughtful reactions of our colleagues to the “no prescriptives, please” proposal of Robinson et al. (2013), as well as the opportunity to respond to them. For the most part, our colleagues seem to agree that a problem exists in terms of unwarranted recommendations for practice appearing too often in educational research journals....

To counteract what we see as a growing research-reporting concern, we propose the following editorial-policy change regarding the content of primary research articles in educational research journals: Contributors should restrict their discussion and conclusions to their data and not offer recommendations for educational practice nor speculate abou...

Two previous studies examining 5 empirical educational psychology research journals (Hsieh et al., 2005; Robinson, Levin, Thomas, Pituch, & Vaughn, 2007) found that in the 21-year period from 1983 to 2004, there was a decrease in intervention and randomized experimental research, whereas in the 10-year period from 1994 to 2004, there was an increas...

It has long been assumed that graphic organizers (GOs) should be presented to students following text as an organizer, rather than preceding text as an overview. Robinson et al. (Educational Technology Research & Development, 51(4), 25–41, 2003) challenged this assumption by finding support for GOs as an overview. The present study further examined...

I have fond memories as a graduate student reading such journals as the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition and being excited to learn of all the wonderful research that had classroom learning implications. Unfortunately, the contributions of cognitive psychology have not permeated the educational psychology journals...

Skidmore and Thompson (this issue of Educational Researcher) imply that a graph was changed with the intent to promote more experimental research in education. In this response, the author presents evidence that challenges this implication and concludes that the changed graph does not accurately capture the declining trend of experimental methods i...

Light is universally understood as essential to the human condition. Yet light quality varies substantially in nature and in controlled environments leading to questions of which artificial light characteristics facilitate maximum learning. Recent research has examined lighting variables of color temperature, and illumination for affecting sleep, m...

Having been personally involved in several examinations of productivity in various sub-disciplines of psychology, I read with great interest the articles in this special issue. I commend the authors for engaging in this activity, as I feel that a field benefits from occasional self-examinations. In this commentary, I caution against placing too muc...

We investigated the effects of feedback and collaboration on undergraduates' transfer performance when using a computer networking training simulation. In Experiment 1, 65 computer science "novices" worked through an instructional protocol individually (control), individually with feedback, or collaboratively with feedback. Unexpectedly, collaborat...

Reports an error in "Varying tutorial modality and interface restriction to maximize transfer in a complex simulation environment" by Michael C. Mayrath, Priya K. Nihalani and Daniel H. Robinson ( Journal of Educational Psychology, , , np). The name of the author Laura G. Torres was omitted. (The following abstract of the original article appeared...

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 103(2) of Journal of Educational Psychology (see record 2011-10421-001). The name of the author Laura G. Torres was omitted.] In 2 experiments, 241 undergraduates with low domain knowledge viewed a tutorial on how to use Packet Tracer (PT), a computer-networking training simulati...

The No Child Left Behind Act (2001) mandates determining what educational practices are demonstrated to be effective through rigorous scientific research. What types of evidence are recommended practices based on? The authors analyzed 304 citations accompanying prescriptive statements in 6 recent teacher education textbooks. Prescriptive statements...

This past summer, we lost a mover and shaker in the field of educational psychology when Roxana Moreno passed away. Although Roxana left us at a relatively young age and early in her career—she received her Ph.D. in 1999, she left her mark with an impressive list of scholarly contributions and by influencing the people with whom she had worked. Thi...

Rodgers (2010) recently applauded a revolution involving the increased use of statistical modeling techniques. It is argued that such use may have a downside, citing empirical evidence in educational psychology that modeling techniques are often applied in cross-sectional, correlational studies to produce unjustified causal conclusions and prescrip...

Robinson, Levin, Thomas, Pituch, and Vaughn (2007) examined 74 articles reporting nonintervention studies (i.e., studies with no researcher-manipulated variables) that appeared in 5 educational journals in 1994. Of these articles, 22 contained prescriptive statements (e.g., if teachers or students did X, then student outcome Y would result). In the...

I am happy to report signs of continued and increasing health for the journal. Submissions increased slightly from 69 in 2008 to 71 in 2009 (33 in 2006—my first year as editor). The average number of days from submission to initial editorial decision decreased from 38 days in 2008 to 33 days in 2009 (51 days in 2006). Most journals average more tha...

The notion that greater learning outcomes will be achieved if the cognitive work is distributed amongst a group of individuals working together versus working alone has received mixed support when explored empirically (e.g., Daiute & Dalton 1993;Johnson & Johnson, 1991). This study examined the relationship between small-group collaborative learnin...

Instructors in higher education are disseminating instructional content via podcasting, as many rally behind the technology’s potential benefits. Others have expressed concern about the risks of deleterious effects that might accompany the adoption of podcasting, such as lower class attendance. Yet, relatively few studies have investigated students...

Productivity of individuals and institutions in educational psychology journals has been previously examined in three separate studies (Hsieh et al. [Hsieh, P., Acee, T., Chung, W., Hsieh, Y., Kim, H., Thomas, G. D., et al. (2004). An alternate look at educational psychologist’s productivity from 1991 to 2002. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 2...

People use external knowledge representations (EKRs) to identify, depict, transform, store, share, and archive information. Learning how to work with EKRs is central to be-coming proficient in virtually every discipline. As such, EKRs play central roles in cur-riculum, instruction, and assessment. Five key roles of EKRs in educational assessment ar...

The educational psychology community received sad news on October 15, 2009 that one of the giants in our field had left us at the young age of 69. Jere Brophy not only left an enormous impact on the field but also on countless individuals whose paths had crossed his. This editor's note includes comments from those who were close to him. I first met...

To increase learners' interest, educators and authors may include interesting but not always relevant details (i.e., seductive details). Students often learn the seductive details, but often at the expense of learning important or target material. The well-documented phenomenon has been termed the seductive-details effect (Garner,. The distraction...

The purpose of instructional technology is to make things possible that are otherwise not, or to make easier things that otherwise are difficult. This chapter describes a few of the tweaks to team-based learning that the authors have developed using technology.

Seductive details are interesting, but sometimes irrelevant to the target material present in texts and lectures. In the current study, 388 undergraduate students read six paragraphs describing Sigmund Freud's psychosexual stages (i.e., target material). Participants in four groups also read one of two biographical paragraphs. The biographical para...

The authors examined the methodologies of articles in teaching-and-learning research journals, published in 1994 and in 2004, and classified them as either intervention (based on researcher-manipulated variables) or nonintervention. Consistent with the findings of Hsieh et al., intervention research articles declined from 45% in 1994 to 33% in 2004...

In 3 quasi-experiments using intact classrooms and 1 true experiment using random assignment, students completed partially complete graphic organizers (GOs) or studied complete GOs that covered course content. The partial task led to increased overall examination performance in all experiments. Also, the authors measured students' note-taking style...

The 20 most productive authors (in terms of number of articles authored) Were identified across three major autism-specific journals (Autism: An International Journal of Research and Practice, Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, and the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders) published betWeen 1997 and 2004. Of the top 20 a...

The original article to which this erratum refers was published in Psychology in the Schools 43(6) 2006, 737-743.

An erratum has been published for this article in Psychology in the Schools 43(7) 2006, iii-vi. []. S.G. Little (1997) reported the top contributors to the school psychology literature from 1987 to 1995. The present study represents a follow-up by examining the top contributors from 1996 to 2005. Similar to Little, a list of the top 50 contributors...

This chapter emphasizes on two goals that complement the already-existing emphasis in the experimental literature. First, data analysts should augment the most common techniques with a micro-level focus on the data that provides intimacy and understanding beyond the standard sums-of-squares computations. One way to accomplish this is to use techniq...

The authors examined intervention studies that appeared in 4 educational psychology journals (Cognition & Instruction, Contemporary Educational Psychology, Journal of Educational Psychology, Journal of Experimental Education) and the American Educational Research Journal (AERJ) in 1983 and from 1995 to 2004. The majority of studies included adults...

Previously, Robinson, McKay, Katayama, and Fan (1998) examined women’s involvement in six educational psychology journals (American Educational Research Journal, Contemporary Educational Psychology, Educational Psychologist, Educational Psychology Review, Journal of Experimental Education, and Journal of Educational Psychology) from 1976 to 1996 an...

Although the effectiveness of corporal punishment (CP) has received little empirical support, public support for this disciplinary method continues despite calls for its abandonment by researchers. Even among educators, favorable attitudes toward the use of CP are prevalent. We measured education majors beliefs about CP before and after they read a...

The conjoint retention hypothesis (CRH) claims that students recall more text information when they study geographic maps in addition to text than when they study text alone, because the maps are encoded spatially (Kulhavy, Lee, & Caterino, 1985). This claim was recently challenged by Griffin and Robinson (2000), who found no advantage for maps ove...

New US government requirements state that federally funded grants and school programs must prove that they are based on scientifically proved improvements in teaching and learning. All new grants must show they are based on scientifically sound research to be funded, and budgets to schools must likewise show that they are based on scientifically so...

Previous investigations of the productivity of educational psychologists (Smith et al., 1998, 2003) have used a points system that deWnes high productivity as having few co-authors and high authorship placement. Due to the increasingly collaborative nature of educational psy-chology research (Robinson, McKay, Katayama, & Fan, 1998), deWning product...

Previously, D. H. Robinson and G. Schraw (see record 1995-11458-001) found that advantages of graphic organizers (GOs) over outlines disappeared when testing was delayed. However, D. H. Robinson and K. A. Kiewra (see record 1996-12932-001), using a longer text and several displays, found that delayed testing was detrimental for outlines. In 2 exp...