Ala Samarapungavan
Associate Professor of Educational Psychology
Purdue University
WELCOME TO MY HOME PAGE
Kindergarten science: Child's model of butterfly life cycle from the Scientific Literacy Project
Kindergarten science: Child's representation of caterpillar growth from the Scientific Literacy Projectt
Research
My research focuses on reasoning and learning in science from childhood through adulthood. I am interested in developmental, cultural, and epistemic aspects of knowledge acquisition in the sciences.
I collaborate with public schools in Indiana to help elementary, middle, and high school teachers infuse inquiry into science instruction and to document student learning. I also collaborate with researchers in chemistry, engineering, medicine, and veterinary medicine, on a variety of projects that examine the features of advanced science learning at the college level and beyond.
Recently, I have become interested in informal science learning of the kind that occurs from museum field trips and 4H science projects. more>>
Teaching
I teach graduate and undergraduate courses in research methodology and educational psychology. I also offer seminar courses for advanced doctoral students on knowledge acquisition in science and mathematics.
I guide graduate student research in the areas of science learning and higher order thinking. My research group currently consists of six graduate students. more>>
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Professional History
I trained as a clinical psychologist at the University of Delhi and then obtained my Ph.D. in Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois - Champaign. I then took my first academic position in the Department of Cognitive Psychology at the University of Amsterdam. After two years in the Netherlands, I accepted a position at Purdue. more>>
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Personal
The special people in my life are my husband Harm HogenEsch and our daughter, Elena HogenEsch. Oh - and there is one significant other as well - our dog Sasha. more>>
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