Dr. Allison Master

Dr. Allison Master

@allisonmaster.bsky.social

Principal Education Researcher at IACE, Associate Prof at U of Houston, studying how to motivate students in STEM. Academic mama. Bookworm. Every mistake, we must surely be learning. She/her/hers. Views expressed here are my own. Abolish ICE.

5.2K followers2.3K following1.2K posts

Pinned

Dr. Allison Master reposted

Still upset about that highly cited paper in Psych Science you consider deeply flawed? Now is your time to shine ✨

simine vazire@simine.com

Another special issue at Psych Science! We invite “submissions that advance the field through critical appraisal of articles previously published by Psychological Science” Please share! www.psychologicalscience.org/publications...

Dr. Allison Master reposted

NEW: In March the White House released an FY27 budget request that zeroed out the National Science Foundation's directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE). For months it was unclear what would happen. Now, with FY26 over, the damage to SBE is coming to light. My reporting:

science.org‘Complete devastation’: How NSF gutted its social sciences researchAgency body that funds sociology, linguistics, and archaeology studies in U.S. gave 90% fewer new grants this year

Dr. Allison Master reposted

It's a good idea to apply help-seeking theory (i.e., expedient, instrumental types) to GenAI use. And the facts their profiles replicated past work and relations with help-seeking align with theory both make me more confident in the solution. Next step is to measure actual help-seeking behaviors.

doi.org“Help-seeking 2.0”: exploring how expectancy-value-cost profiles relate to GenAI help-seeking tendencies among STEM undergraduates - Journal of Computing in Higher EducationDiscussions on Generative AI (GenAI) and student learning have shifted from whether students should be permitted to use GenAI to how educators and institutions may support its use to enhance…

Dr. Allison Master reposted

We're hiring research engineers, research associates & several postdocs at the Wisdom & Culture Lab @UWaterloo to build experiments, tools & models on how AI shapes human reasoning, decisions & culture. Psych, cogsci, ML/NLP, HCI & eng backgrounds welcome. uwaterloo.ca/wisdom-and-c...

🚨 New paper alert! 🚨 We are excited to share our new SPOE paper, “It doesn’t always have to be this way: Promoting girls’ interest in STEM through growth mindsets and structural explanations of gender differences”! This has two preregistered experimental studies with open materials. (1/9)

View full thread

🚨 New paper alert! 🚨 We are excited to share our new SPOE paper, “It doesn’t always have to be this way: Promoting girls’ interest in STEM through growth mindsets and structural explanations of gender differences”! This has two preregistered experimental studies with open materials. (1/9)

View full thread

This gave us the space for a rich discussion of why neither study worked as expected—I think it’s worth a read! Research definitely has a file drawer problem, and I'm so grateful that both of these studies made it out of our file drawers to be shared. (7/9)

There were some interesting exploratory findings: girls who learned about structural explanations were more likely to believe their interest in a new activity could develop over time, and perceived gender differences to be smaller. (8/9)

🚨 New paper alert! 🚨 We are excited to share our new SPOE paper, “It doesn’t always have to be this way: Promoting girls’ interest in STEM through growth mindsets and structural explanations of gender differences”! This has two preregistered experimental studies with open materials. (1/9)

View full thread

Neither experiment worked as we expected (despite promising pilot data), but we still found lots of meaningful links between mindsets, beliefs about causes of gender differences, and girls’ interest in STEM. (6/9)

🚨 New paper alert! 🚨 We are excited to share our new SPOE paper, “It doesn’t always have to be this way: Promoting girls’ interest in STEM through growth mindsets and structural explanations of gender differences”! This has two preregistered experimental studies with open materials. (1/9)

View full thread

Key idea: countering gender stereotypes involves changing girls' perceptions that “STEM is not for me.” Two approaches: counter beliefs that "I can’t change" (with growth mindsets) or counter beliefs that "my group cannot change" (by teaching structural explanations for gender differences) (3/9)

🚨 New paper alert! 🚨 We are excited to share our new SPOE paper, “It doesn’t always have to be this way: Promoting girls’ interest in STEM through growth mindsets and structural explanations of gender differences”! This has two preregistered experimental studies with open materials. (1/9)

Dr. Allison Master reposted

New from me: The University of Houston is proposing cutting 100 courses from its core curriculum to comply with SB 37, but faculty critics say the university's interpreting the law "in ways that go well beyond" what its text says. #HigherEd #AcademicSky

chronicle.comU. of Houston is Planning Big Cuts to Its Core Curriculum. Faculty Aren’t Happy.The university is moving to cut 40 percent of classes from its core curriculum in response to a state law. Professors say administrators’ interpretation of the law is too broad, and that they should h...

Dr. Allison Master reposted

Replying to @michael-okun.bsky.social

Over the last month I saw that human editors are now stripped of control. I could no longer stop the system from auto-inviting "reviewers" with zero relevant expertise. Even worse - the AI began actively revoking the invitations I manually sent out to actual, qualified experts.

Dr. Allison Master reposted

Half of surveyed Texas Tech faculty changed course content on their own after the chancellor's memos restricting teaching on race, gender, and sexuality. More than half say they're now looking for other jobs as a result of the memos. #HigherEd @chronicle.com www.chronicle.com/article/half...

chronicle.comHalf of Surveyed Faculty at Texas Tech Say They Altered Course Content Without Being Asked ToThe findings of an unscientific, faculty-conducted survey suggested that new policies on teaching about race and sex have changed university instruction.

Dr. Allison Master reposted

The APA Division 15 Committee on the Development of Early Career Educational Psychologists (ECEP) is seeking new committee members! We are a fun group that does great work. Join us! Applications due June 14. purdue.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

purdue.ca1.qualtrics.comQualtrics Survey | Qualtrics Experience ManagementThe most powerful, simple and trusted way to gather experience data. Start your journey to experience management and try a free account today.

Dr. Allison Master reposted

We just got approved to hire a teaching professor in Quantitative Methods! This is the *very* rare tenure track teaching position at Berkeley. I'll be chairing the search committee. Official job ad coming later this summer!

Dr. Allison Master reposted

I'm a big fan of the 2nd edition of The Science of Learning! Clear, practical implications for the classroom based on well-established principles - all presented in a very readable and usable way. Send it to your favorite educator, trainer, or learner today! @deansforimpact #TheScienceOfLearning2

deansforimpact.orgThe Science of Learning | Deans for Impact (DFI)Cognitive science research on student learning, applied to teaching practices.

Dr. Allison Master reposted

What is a psychological theory? Here's our take on this tricky and controversial question in this week's Experimentology chapter summary. Many things called "theories" in psychology aren't actually theories — they're frameworks. 🧵 experimentology.io

Profiles were linked to math GPA, with "for all” and “for me” showing the highest grades. Girls were more prevalent in low motivation profiles. Self-perceptions were more linked to interest stereotypes than ability stereotypes.

I learned so much about the links between stereotypes and motivation through the process of working on this project and looking at these patterns in our data. I love this paper and working with Suppanut! 🥰

The For Others profile was 20% of girls and 16% of boys. This group reported low self-perceptions with high perceptions of both the ingroup’s and outgroup’s attributes, suggesting a belief that others were more competent and interested in math than themselves.

The For Some profile only emerged among boys (25%). This profile showed moderate to somewhat high mean scores for ingroup attributes, outgroup attributes, and self-perceptions, with self-perceptions being comparable or lower than corresponding stereotypes favoring girls’ ability and interest.

For Me was the most common, including 36% of girls and 30% of boys. This one showed high self-perceptions, often higher than both ingroup and outgroup perceptions. Compared to For All, this one had lower perceptions of ingroup and outgroup members, so math was “more for me than for them.”

The For Few profile was least common, particularly among boys (7% boys, 12% girls). Girls and boys in this profile showed relatively low scores on all indicators, suggesting a belief that only a few students possess math competence and interest, and they are not among them.

The profiles showed groups of students whose self-perceptions and stereotypes corresponded to views that math was "for all," "for me," "for some," "for others," or "for few." (Not just high, medium, and low motivation profiles!)

The For All profile included 32% of girls and 22% of boys. This profile generally showed high mean scores across all indicators for both genders, reflecting a belief that everyone was competent and interested in math.