David Sears

Assistant Professor
Department of Educational Studies

Research

Collaborative learning can promote impressive learning gains for students of all achievement levels when appropriate scaffolds are in place.  While a number of ways of promoting learning via collaboration have been identified, much remains to be learned.  Topics include how collaboration affects transfer, what types of tasks naturally support productive interaction, and when unique benefits of collaboration for learning can be expected.  Using quantitative and qualitative methods, my research examines these topics primarily in the domains of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

Education

Ph.D.	Stanford University, 2006, Psychological Studies in Education
B.A.	Reed College, 1998, Psychology

Selected Publications

1. Schwartz, D.L., Sears, D.A., & Chang, J. (2007). Reconsidering prior knowledge. In M. Lovett and P. Shah (Eds.), Thinking with Data. Mahwan, NJ: Erlbaum.
   
   
2. Sears, D.A. (2006, June). Effects of innovation versus efficiency tasks on recall and trasnfer in individual and collaborative learning contexts. In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Learning Sciences (Bloomington, Indiana, June 27-July 01, 2006). International Conference on Learning Sciences. International Society of the Learning Sciences, 681-687.
   
   
3. Busch, R., Byrne, B., Gandrud, L., Sears, D., Meyer, E., Kattah, M., Kurihara, C., Haertel, E., Parnes, J.R., Mellins, E.D. (2006). Medicine on a need-to-know basis. Nature Immunology, 7, 543-547.
   
   
4. Schwartz, D., Bransford, J. & Sears, D. (2005). Efficiency and innovation in transfer. In J. Mestre (Ed.), Transfer of learning from a modern multidisciplinary perspective CT: Information Age Publishing.

Courses Taught

EDPS 235	Learning & Motivation
EDPS 530	Advanced Educational Psychology
EDPS 533	Introduction to Educational Research 1: Methodology
EDPS 591Z	Collaborative Learning

Professional Experience

2006-present

Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN