Cognitive and Learning Sciences Group

The Cognitive and Learning Sciences Group at ETS has wide-ranging expertise in the universal human cognitive processes of:

• perception and attention
• working memory
• reasoning and problem-solving
• decision making
• learning

This group also has expertise in social cognition, such as collaborative problem-solving, motivation, engagement and self-regulation.

We apply our expertise to foundational research questions and in applied work to enhance educational products and services. In our research, we apply a broad range of methodologies, including:

• experimental research, survey and protocol methods (e.g., think-aloud or digital log file capture)
• computational cognitive modeling
• complex statistical data modeling (supervised and unsupervised)
• learning analytics
• theoretically grounded educational data mining

• Measuring collaborative problem-solving skills
• Effects of assessment design on student cognition and motivation
• Developing algorithms to support students' educational choices

Andrews-Todd, J., & Forsyth, C. M. (2020). Exploring social and cognitive dimensions of collaborative problem solving in an open online simulation-based task. Computers in human behavior, 104, 105759.

Arslan, B., Jiang, Y., Keehner, M., Gong, T., Katz, I. R., & Yan, F. (2020). The Effect of Drag‐and‐Drop Item Features on Test‐Taker Performance and Response Strategies. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 39(2), 96–106.

Finn, B. (2020). Exploring interactions between motivation and cognition to better shape self-regulated learning.  Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 9(4), 461–467.

Kannan, P., Bryant, A. D., Shao, S., & Wylie, E. C. (2021). Identifying Teachers' Needs for Results From Interim Unit Assessments. ETS Research Report Series.