Ellen Usher

Story by Rest Aliu, Undergraduate Research Assistant On October 23rd, Our team participated in its very first joint lab meeting! We met with The Old Dominion University’s Motivational, Identity, and Learning Lab (MilLab), which is directed by Dr. Tony Perez. The MilLab studies the role of motivational and identity processes in academic achievement and how …

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by Olivia Huffman, Undergraduate Research Assistant The P20 Motivation and Learning Lab is in full swing this fall semester. Our team is currently pursuing new, exciting research ideas. To highlight a few, Xiao-Yin Chen is proposing her Master’s thesis, which will examine a social psychological belonging intervention for first-year undergraduate students. Calah Ford is also …

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Lab members presented our latest research at the Spring Research Conference in Louisville, KY, this March. The conference draws students the University of Kentucky, University of Cincinnati, and University of Louisville who are investigating diverse topics related to education, mental health, and sport. Our lab gave seven presentations. Topics included sources of rural adolescents’ self-efficacy in …

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Our own lab member, and soon to be lab alumna, Chelsea Adams, has been featured in this UKnow story. Chelsea joined our lab five years ago as a sophomore. This weekend we celebrate her Master’s degree and her enormous contributions to the research our lab conducts. Because of Chelsea, we have been able to shed …

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Members of our research lab presented research at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in San Antonio, Texas, last week. They had a chance to converse with outstanding scholars in the field of motivation and educational psychology, including Bernie Weiner, Ed Deci, Dale Schunk, Jacque Eccles, Mimi Bong, Judy Harackiewicz, and Tim …

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As our fall semester comes to a close, each lab member had an opportunity to present the semester’s focal project to the full group. Students in the lab are currently working on 11 projects in many domains, including music education, physical education, teaching students with autism, mindfulness and motivation, stigma consciousness, sources of language learning …

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All members of the P20 Motivation and Learning Lab have been involved in spring research presentations at the tri-university (University of Louisville, University of Cincinnati, UK) Spring Research Conference on education and at the Kentucky Psychological Foundation’s Spring Academic Conference. Here is a list of presentations made this spring. All presentations will be available soon on …

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Congratulations to Chelsea Adams who has received a 2015 Eller/Billings Award for her research on the self-beliefs of adolescents from rural Appalachia. Chelsea is a second-year Master’s student in educational psychology. Her thesis research will explore how students’ awareness of stigma is related to their academic motivation and achievement.

Congratulations to Dr. Amanda Butz on the successful defense of her dissertation study, “Connecting the Dots: Social Capital and the College-Going Beliefs of Rural Appalachian Students”! We are so proud of all the work Amanda has done not only in her own research but in making our research lab what it is. Congratulations, Dr. Butz! Dissertation Abstract …

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Educational psychology graduate students and undergraduate members of the P20 Motivation and Learning Lab led by Dr. Ellen Usher will be presenting research papers on a panel at the upcoming UK Appalachian Research Symposium and Arts Showcase. The panel, entitled “Exploring Contextual Influences on Students’ Educational Beliefs in an Eastern Kentucky School District,” will feature …

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