Professor David Jonassen humbly sidesteps the grander importance of his research, yet his work would appear to have very serious and broad-reaching implications for educational systems and seems to call out for educational reform. As a professor in the area of educational psychology, Jonassen’s past research has focused on designing constructivist learning environments, cognitive tools for learning (Mindtools), cognitive modeling/task analysis, and systems dynamics/modeling. Most recently, his attention has moved toward issues of problem-solving. To this end, he has begun working in the context of engineering education for obvious reasons—because engineering students are specifically trained (and will be eventually hired) to solve problems. The types of problems engineers encounter on the job, like those people encounter in everyday life, are relatively “ill-structured” ones—that is, they don’t necessarily have a correct solution, a well-defined method for finding a solution, or even well-established criteria for what determines a successful solution.

How much do infants know about the world in which they live? At what age do humans begin to develop an understanding of object permanence and of the reality that people act in response to different things around them? These are the kinds of questions Yuyan Luo, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences, seeks to answer. In addition to teaching cognition development courses—from infancy to toddler—she runs the Infant Cognition Lab, which tests psychological and biological knowledge development through a series of lab experiments. Now in its second year of operation, the lab conducts experiments with participants as young as two and one-half months old.

We began this interview with the intent of focusing, as we usually do, on one person’s research. However, this query soon became—like the collaborative work it highlights—a joint project involving James R. Koller and Karen Weston of the Department of Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology in the College of Education, two individuals working together to “think outside the box” by creating the Center for the Advancement of Mental Health Practices in the Schools, now affectionately called “the Center” by its members. “The Center was created in response to the rising number of students in need of mental health services today,” states its homepage. It was initiated “as a paradigm shift that recognizes prevention as a fundamental element in supporting our nation’s youth facing developmental challenges, psycho-social issues, and environmental stressors within the school system and community . . . with the whole thrust being a paradigmatic shift from mental illness to mental health.” Of course, “you’re never going to get away from mental illness,” admits Koller, “but instead of waiting until pathology occurs, the question posed to me was how we can do something different. How can we better prepare consumers at all levels to be better informed so that we can create a positive learning environment for each learner and increase her or his self-concept, while academic learning flourishes?”

Collaborating with Mark Flinn (psychology and anthropology) and David Geary (psychology) on how and why human brains developed as they did.

Kerns gives an introduction to his research on cognitive processes and the brain.

Kerns continues to give an overview of his research.

How cognitive control processes work. What scholars know about the human brain.

How cognitive control processes work. What scholars know about the human brain.

Kerns discusses how activity in different parts of brain can be observed in the lab.

Kerns discusses more on cognitive control.

Kerns discusses activity in various brain regions as a result of different cognitive process.

Kerns discusses the technology used in his research to view brain activity.

Kerns discusses the characteristics of the different stages of schizophrenia.

Psychologist Yuyan Luo explains how she first became interested in studying infant cognition and the types of “looking-time studies” she uses to study how much infants understand about object permanence.

Luo runs the Infant Cognition Lab at MU, in its second year of existence. Luo describes some of the experiments she began in graduate school concerning transparency and object permanence.

Luo describes her current research project, which focuses on determining infants’ knowledge of psychological reasoning. Using the looking-time method, she is testing infants as young as three-months old to see if they understand the concept of object preference.

All of the subjects in Luo’s experiments are volunteered by their parents. Luo talks about research she hopes to pursue in her future work.

In addition to running the Infant Cognition Lab, Luo also teaches cognition development courses at MU, ranging from infancy to toddler psychological and biological knowledge development.

Most of Jim Koller’s past research and practice as a licensed psychologist was directed toward pathology, that is, “abnormal behavior.” But he became disillusioned with the then-current state of affairs, realizing that “we have to do something different to stop the escalating incidence of mental illness vis-à-vis mental health problems in the country.” With the cooperation of the Missouri state legislature and the Department of Mental Health, the Center for the Advancement of Mental Health Practices in the Schools was conceived—“with the whole thrust being a paradigmatic shift from mental illness to mental health.”

Yuyan Luo uses “looking-time studies” to learn how much infants understand about the world around them. In this lab video, the top half of the frame will reveal what the infant is shown, whereas the bottom half reveals the infant's reaction.

At the first and only sanctioned online-degree program with a focus on mental health issues in schools in the country, students can take individual courses based on their unique needs through continuing education, and even earn a degree at the Masters or Education Specialist level. Recognized as a national model, the Center’s online program focuses on evidence-based practice and on current, practical application-driven principles and tested theories; people working in the field can take coursework in areas with which they are being confronted professionally.