Photo of Dai, Ting

Ting Dai, PhD

Assistant Professor

Educational Psychology

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers/她

Contact

Building & Room:

3048 ETMSW

Address:

1040 W. Harrison St. (M/C 147), Chicago, IL 60607

Office Phone:

(312) 996-1878

Email:

tdai@uic.edu

About

Ting Dai is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology.  Her research centers on student motivation, engagement, and epistemic cognition in STEM. Her other line of research focuses on the methodological issues with educational and psychological research, such as missing data and measurement invariance. Dr. Dai' research projects were funded by the Institute of Education Sciences and the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Dai teaches statistics course (e.g., structural equation modeling), research design/methods and assessment courses. She is on the Editorial Board of Journal of Educational Psychology and Journal of Experimental Education.

Selected Grants

Institute of Education Sciences, US Department of Education, Evaluation of an Intervention to Improve Academic Outcomes for Low-Income Urban Youth through Instruction in Effective Coping Supported by Mentoring Relationships (7/1/2021-6/30/2026), Co-I

Institute of Education Sciences, US Department of Education, Bootstrapping Achievement and Motivation in STEM: An Integrated Cognitive-Motivational Intervention to Improve Biology Grades (8/1/2014-7/31/2018), Co-PI

Institute of Education Sciences, US Department of Education, Inference-Making and Reasoning: Refinement of an Assessment for Use in Gateway Biology Courses (9/1/2016-8/31/2020), Co-PI

Selected Publications

Dai, T., Du, Y., Cromley, J.G., Fechter, T. & Nelson, F.E. (2023). Analytic approaches to handle missing data in simple matrix sampling planned missing designs. The Journal of Experimental Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220973.2023.2196678

Dai, T. & Davey, A. (2023). Determining dimensionality with dichotomous variables: A Monte Carlo simulation study and applications to missing data in longitudinal research. Mathematics, 11(6). https://doi.org/10.3390/math11061411

Edwards, O. V., & Dai, T. (2023). Differential relations among expectancy, task value, engagement, and academic performance: The role of generation status. Frontiers in Education, 7, 1033100. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2022.1033100

Smith, T. & Dai, T. (2023). Exploring achievement behaviors in non-major statistics course: an expectancy-value perspective and thoughts for practice. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 23(3), 39-57. https://doi.org/10.14434/josotl.v23i3.34211

Dai, T., Rosenberg, J., & Lawson, M., (2022). Data Representation and Visualization. In T. L. Good & M. McCaslin (Eds.), Educational Psychology Section; D. Fisher (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Education (Online). Taylor & Francis: New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781138609877-REE148-1

Tang, X. & Dai, T. (2021). How do children’s social behaviors influence longitudinal reading achievement? A conditional autoregressive latent growth trajectory analysis. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 54, 239-251. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2020.09.007

Kaplan, A., Cromley, J. G., Perez, T., Dai, T., Mara, K., & Balsai, M. (2020). The role of context in educational RCT findings: A call to redefine “evidence-based practice.” Educational Researcher, 49(4), 285-288. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X20921862

Kiuhara, S. A., Gillespie, A., Dai, T., Witzel, B.,Morphy, P., & Unker, B. (2019). Constructing written arguments to develop fraction knowledge. Journal of Educational Psychology, 112(3), 584-607. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/edu0000391

Dai, T., Van Boekel, M., Cromley, J., Nelson, F. & Fechter, T, (2018). Using think-alouds to create a better measure of biology reasoning. SAGE Research Methods Cases.https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781526437167

Dai, T., & Cromley, J.G. (2014). Changes in implicit theories of ability in biology and dropout from STEM majors: A latent growth curve approach. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 39(3), 233–247. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2014.06.003

Education

Ph.D. in Educational Psychology, Temple University
M.Ed. in Educational Psychology, Temple University

Professional Memberships

American Educational Research Association
American Psychological Association
European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction

Selected Presentations

Dai, T., Qiao, L., Snow, M., Cromley, J. G., Kaplan, A., Perez, T., Mara, K. R., & Balsai, M. J. (2020, August). Differential engagement in an online learning support module: How may it affect biology grades? Presidential Poster Session presented at the American Psychological Association 2020 Virtual Convention, August 6-9, 2020. https://apadiv15.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Dai-et-al-APA-2020-virtual-poster-compressed.pdf

Research Currently in Progress

STEM Behind Sickle Cell: A Pilot Study for Development and Efficacy of the Informal Learning Program for STEM Identity of Underrepresented Minorities