Educational Psychology

• Educational Psychology graduate students are knowledgeable about learning and development, inquiry methods, and student assessment.
• Educational Psychology graduate students have inquiry skills to conduct scholarly research effectively.
• Educational Psychology graduate students present scholarly research effectively.
• Educational Psychology graduate students model the ethical treatment of research participants.

Graduate students in Educational Psychology can look forward to a plethora of career opportunities. These include occupations as

• Professors: Depending on areas of expertise, graduates could be hired in a variety of university departments such as Educational Psychology, Second Language Studies, Curriculum Studies, Teacher Education, Nursing, Disability Studies, Educational Technology, Computer Science & Information, and Business.
• Researchers or Specialists: Graduates could be hired as researchers or specialists in departments of education, K-12 schools, or research institutes.
• Administrators: Previous graduates have also worked in administration at universities, K-12 schools, testing companies, testing & evaluation sections in departments of education, and directors of research institutes.
• Teachers: Graduates who are teachers in K-12 schools have been appointed to leadership roles in areas of assessment & learning.

Lauren Mark (MEd Graduate and Current PhD student): I genuinely liked the courses that were offered and I enjoyed what I was learning. The course material was/is very interesting and it is so great to be able to put theory to practice in real educational settings. I also really like the faculty very much and feel a sense of community among the students and professors. The professors are always available to help students. Learn more about Lauren Mark in her COE Profile.

Kristen Swope (MEd Graduate): I chose Educational Psychology because I am a kindergarten teacher and I wanted to discover more about how children learn in order to become a better teacher. I enjoyed learning about the various learning styles, theories, and perspectives.

Most importantly to me, I learned how to create meaningful assessments that match the Hawaii Content Standard Benchmarks. I learned not only how to create assessments, but how to evaluate them and use the information from the assessments to improve my instruction and student learning. I feel that through the Educational Psychology program I have gained knowledge that has improved my teaching and I have been able to share what I have learned to other teachers and have helped them as well.

Nara Takakawa (MEd Graduate): I applied to the master's program in Educational Psychology to study teaching, learning, development, and assessment. My academic interest was (and still is) identifying if an English language learner has a learning disability, and I thought that Ed. Psych. was where I could get my questions answered.

In my studies, I concluded that traditional forms of testing and assessment were not appropriate for these learners, so I switched fields and am now in a Ph.D. program in Multicultural Special Education at another university.

However, I have found that my Ed. Psych. degree prepared me well for my Ph.D. program for several reasons. First, I came to my new program with a fairly sophisticated understanding of learning theory. I had already been exposed to many of the concepts, such as zone of proximal development, mediated learning, and distributed cognition that were new to most of my classmates. Second, my statistics classes provided an excellent foundation for the courses that I now have to take. Finally, I appreciated the flexibility of the degree, which allowed me to take courses in Counseling and Special Education. Those extra, non-EDEP courses enabled me to transition to Special Education quite easily. Looking back, I am glad I studied Educational Psychology at UHM.

George Harrison (Current PhD student): I chose this program because it suits my career goals (and I heard it was a good program from my MA advisor-Graham Crookes-and other grad students). I want to further develop as a teacher, a teacher trainer, an administrator, and as a researcher in studies that are informative to teachers. At the same time, I especially like how the EP program here at UH not only assumes, but expects that you have a specialty that is outside of the field of EP (a domain, e.g.). EP will give me a strong foundation upon which I can base research and practice in my own field.

Brian Lawton (MEd Graduate and Current PhD student): Initially, I was interested in EDEP as a means to help me understand how to conduct good educational research and how this is tied to understanding the cognitive\learning development of individuals. I became interested in program evaluation later on and realized that EDEP provides the foundation for many of the principles of program evaluation (e.g. assessment, statistics, learning theory, etc.). Really, to me, it is a program evaluation degree. I think what interested me the most is how flexible the program is and how it provided the support to fit individual academic needs.

Alice Taum (MEd Graduate and Current PhD student): I have been taking at least one class a semester since graduating from the Educational Psychology program with a master’s degree. I had not decided whether or not I would continue on toward a doctoral degree, but knew that the courses that I was taking were positively influencing my work as a manager in a program evaluation office at the time.

What finally motivated me to apply for the Educational Psychology doctoral program was the department’s decision to develop a program with clear course requirements that I knew would challenge me. I knew that the improved rigorous structure would provide me with broad understandings across major areas in Educational Psychology (Learning and Development, Measurement, Assessment, and Evaluation; Research Design and Data Analysis; graduate seminars, and courses outside the department) making me a competitive employee in the academic work force once I completed the program.

Linda Venenciano (Current PhD student): As a teacher-researcher I often observe classes, either for the purpose of collecting data for research or for mentoring teachers. The EP program offered an opportunity for me to develop a broader understanding of teaching and learning.

Being a mathematics teacher, I was especially drawn to this program because of the balance between the quantitative and qualitative course work. I'm fascinated by the numerical analysis but I know it doesn't capture the complex dynamics of classrooms. The EP program acknowledges the need for a balanced analysis and I believe this course of study will ultimately help me develop my own strategies for understanding phenomenon.