My most recent work concerns the possibilities of using ideas derived from constructivist cognitive theories as a basis for scientific approaches to consciousness.  Other fesearch interests include theories of intellectual development, semiotic aspects of cognition, and children's developing understanding in mathematics and science.

Teaching interests include courses on philosophy of educational inquiry, cognition from a constructivist perspective, constructivist approaches for early childhood, and mathematical cognition. A particular favorite of mine is a course designed to help students create and refine a focus for their thesis work.

Dr. Goncu's work focuses on the role of social and cultural context in young children's development and education.

His current research addresses the role of community and school influences on children's play. His books include Children's Engagement in the World and the recent Play and Development, which elaborate how parents, teachers, and peers contribute children's play and school activities.

As an expert in constructivist and socio-cultural approaches, Dr. Goncu also studies teacher education and professional development.

Dr. Horn's research interests relate to how social-cognitive development and social institutions influence the ways in which adolescents reason about peer harassment, peer discrimination, and peer relationships (in particular, harassment based on peer group membership, sexual orientation, and gender identity/expression). Additionally, she is interested in factors (e.g., age, religion, school context, intergroup context) related to sexual prejudice among adolescents and adults.

In her research, she is interested in how normative changes in adolescent social concepts affect the ways in which adolescents negotiate tensions between their moral understandings of how best to treat others with their conceptions of what is conventionally required for group membership and social solidarity. These conventional expectations are interwoven with adolescents' construction of personal identity, and intimately connected with their assumptions about personhood, and psychological normality. 

Dr. Horn is especially interested in how adolescents' concepts of person characteristics as essential or innate rather than personally chosen or constructed factor into the complex of decisions that result in acceptance of social exclusion and peer harassment, as well as how features of the social context relate to adolescents social reasoning about these issues.

In her teaching, she is interested in adolescent development, broadly, and how psychological, social, and cultural factors impact this development. She also examines how to use our knowledge about adolescent development in creating educational and social context that support and promote positive developmental outcomes for all youth, and specifically for youth who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.

My interest and experience in applied clinical-community research has solidified my focus on considering contextual and cultural factors when working with children and families. As a result, my research seeks to develop an integrated approach to studying African-American children's normative development and utilizing this basic research to create culturally and developmentally appropriate behavior promotion programs.

Specifically, I examine young African-American children's emotional and social competence, including children's affective responses to sociomoral events, and the ways in which schools can support children's development in this area. The findings from this research will lead to the creation a school-based promotion program targeting urban-dwelling African-American children's social and emotional competence.

My main research interests is to develop and apply contemporary statistical methods, for the purposes of improving the accuracy of conclusions in data analysis. My areas of interest include Bayesian decision theory and rational decision-making, Bayesian nonparametric and parametric inference, hierarchical modeling, item-response modeling, and cognitive modeling. I teach courses in Educational Measurement, Nonparametric Statistics, Hierarchical Linear Models, and Theory of Statistics.

For more details see http://www.uic.edu/~georgek/HomePage/

Catherine Main developed and administers the Blended Early Childhood/Early Childhood Special Education Program, which prepares teachers to work with all children regardless of ability and ages birth to 8 years of age, and the Early Childhood Early Certification Program. She primarily provides in-school instruction for teacher candidates. She teaches courses that emphasize collaborating with families, community members, and professionals for early childhood and special education, teaches primary grade methods courses and student teaching seminars in early childhood education.

My program of research focuses on scoring issues in performance and portfolio assessments. I have conducted studies related to training raters, designing scoring rubrics, quality control monitoring, improving rater performance, detecting different types of rater errors, devising statistical indicators of rater drift, and understanding rater cognitive processes that underlie unusual or discrepant rating patterns. I have devised rating scales to evaluate complex performances and products, and I have analyzed rating data using partial-credit and many-facet item response theory (IRT) models. My work blends qualitative and quantitative approaches to examining rating processes, illustrating how the interplay of statistical and qualitative analyses can help one develop, monitor, and continually improve large-scale performance and portfolio assessment systems.

Dr. Pearl’s research focuses on peer relationships, particularly of children with learning disabilities and children considered by teachers or classmates to be high in aggressive behavior. Her most recent research examined factors associated with classroom friendships and social network status, from the perspective of classmates, the classroom teacher, and the children themselves. This work also investigated whether teachers are aware of their students’ peer status, and whether that awareness is a function of how teachers view a student’s personal attributes and academic achievement. Dr. Pearl’s earlier research examined adolescents’ understanding of risky situations and vulnerability to peer influence, and the social cognitive abilities and achievement motivation of students with learning disabilities.

Dr. Thorkildsen's research focuses on how children and adolescents coordinate personal and societal expectations in a force known as civil engagement. This involves developing conceptions of morality, fairness, epistemology, motivation, and self-regulation as each pertains to critical issues within school settings. Dr. Thorkildsen teaches courses in human development, motivation, educational psychology, and research design and methods. For more information, you can go to http://tigger.uic.edu/~thork/fair/

She is particularly interested in classroom assessment and applied measurement. She has conducted research on performance assessment, concept mapping assessment, and formative assessment. In her research, she used learning theory as a foundation, measurement and statistics as tools, to examine ways of using assessments to improve students' learning. Her teaching interests include measurement and applied statistics.