Cognitive and Developmental Psychology in STEM Education

Dear Colleagues,

Education Sciences is pleased to announce a Special Issue on the applications of, or implications for, cognitive and/or developmental psychology to STEM education research. Researchers in STEM education have long held an interest in improving STEM education and expanding the pathways for students to study and obtain STEM degrees. Over the past two decades, this interest has driven the development and growth of discipline-based education research (DBER) in several STEM disciplines, such as engineering education, physics education, mathematics education, and more. While DBER began as a grassroots effort of faculty in the respective disciplines, recent calls for the use of evidence-based pedagogies have led to the emergence of research that uses methodologies from cognitive psychology to examine learning. At the same time, cognitive psychologists are increasingly grounding their research and theory in authentic educational contexts and addressing the complexity of research in STEM education. As a result, now is an apt time to examine the current approaches for applying cognitive psychology methods and theories to STEM education research as a way to motivate further discussion between researchers from different traditions and facilitate future research collaborations.

This Special Issue aims to showcase original empirical work where methods or theories from cognitive or developmental psychology are applied to STEM education research, or findings from STEM education research can inform methods or theories from cognitive or developmental psychology. Articles for this Special Issue should aim to emphasize methodological and theoretical advances, as well as results with tangible implications for policy and practice. Notably, this Special Issue will focus on science, engineering, and mathematics learning in classroom settings across primary, secondary and post-secondary levels.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but not limited to) the following:

• Application of cognitive psychology theories to the study of STEM education;
• Longitudinal or cross-sectional studies that apply developmental psychology theories to the study of STEM education;
• Research that applies theories of embodied cognition theory, cognitive dissonance, dual coding, metacognition, social cognitive, theory of mind, or other cognitive or developmental psychology theories to STEM learning;
• Interdisciplinary research approaches that examine science learning using a combination of methods from discipline-based education, learning science, educational psychology, and cognitive or developmental psychology;
• Methodological studies that advance the use of cognitive or developmental psychology methods to study learning in authentic STEM education contexts;
• Rigorous STEM education studies that inform or advance cognitive or developmental psychology theories;
• Experiences of students in STEM classrooms who identify as members of historically underrepresented groups in STEM and the implications for cognitive or developmental psychology theory;
• Research-based assessments for measuring cognitive or developmental psychology constructs in authentic STEM education contexts;
• Augmented reality, virtual reality, or artificial intelligence-based educational technology that apply cognitive or developmental psychology theories for facilitating authentic learning or engagement in STEM education contexts;
• Design principles for the design of STEM education or educational technologies that apply cognitive or developmental psychology theories.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Jason Morphew
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Education Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• engineering education
• science education
• mathematics education
• cognitive science
• cognitive psychology
• developmental psychology
• educational theory
• evidence-based practice
• measurement
• methodology
• educational technology