Kathryn S. McCarthy
Kathryn McCarthy, assistant professor of educational psychology, received a $6,000 American Psychological Association (APA) Division 15 (Educational Psychology) Early Career Research Grant for a research project entitled, “Examining Students’ Disciplinary Knowledge: Making Comprehension Strategies Visible.”
The Early Career Research Grant is APA Division 15’s largest award and is designed to support early-career researchers – those with doctoral degrees less than five years – in their developing lines of research.
“Even when students’ are proficient readers, they often struggle to learn from text,” McCarthy said. “One reason for this is that students are unaware of the need to use discipline-specific knowledge and strategies when reading for different purposes. The project combines think-aloud protocols and semi-structured interviews to examine the nature of students’ disciplinary knowledge and strategy use during reading. It also examines the promise of using a contrasting case paradigm to help students to leverage their existing disciplinary knowledge.
“The larger goal of this line of work is to help students successfully read across the curriculum. The proposed study provides the critical foundational knowledge necessary to support a larger line of research around interdisciplinary literacy instruction.”