MD: How did you come to be the President of Division 15? Why did you agree?
HE: Over the years I had participated in many of the Division’s activities. At one point, I was the program chair for Div. 15, and then went on to participate in a few of the Division’s committees. I also was the editor of the Division’s newsletter for a number of years. As the editor of the newsletter you can’t help but become more involved with the workings of the Division. In that role I had attended a number of divisional business meetings, program meetings, and other planning meetings. One thing led to another, and I was nominated by a few members of the Executive Committee to serve as President. I was elected to serve the 1999-2000 term, the year aft
er Claire Weinstein served as the Division President.
MD: From your perspective, what was the state of Division 15 before and during your presidency?
HE: Well, I think it was healthy. The membership was fairly stable; I want to say we had somewhere around 1,700 or 1,800 members. At the time we needed a bit more organizational and administrative help from APA to get a better understanding of the balance between active and inactive members we had on our rolls. One of the tasks I set out for myself was to try to increase the visibility of the Division to its members by opening lines of communications and broadening access to the activities of the Division and it members, and with the larger APA community. That is why promoting and developing the newsletter and other forms of communication and publications the members receive was important in my view.
MD: Based on your experience as a researcher and President, what were the salient issues in Educational Psychology around that time?
HE: I think one of them has always been the relevance of educational psychology to schools, school reform, issues of teaching and learning, and also issues of assessment—the methods of assessing student learning, and the emerging test-based accountability environment we have been in for the past number of years There has been a lot of concern about how the research products of our field can be of greater value to those who are trying to improve what is happening in our schools. That was a big issue then, and remains an issue today, though I do think we are more relevant than ever, actually. But I do think there was much concern, back then, about the health of the field in terms of its relevance for promoting change and improvement in schools.
MD: From a person who has held the highest office in Division 15; what is Division 15? What is Educational Psychology?
HE: For me, Educational Psychology is really the discipline, the place, where we can think broadly about the issues of teaching and learning. We can also drill down in many of our research designs to ask, for example, how the knowledge we are developing in the field of educational psychology can be applied to the promotion and development of human learning, institutionally as well as individually, both in and out of school, for the benefit of the society. We have made very good progress in the past 10-12 years with publications such as The Learner Centered Principles published by the American Psychological Association, and some of the collaborative publications that have come out of the National Research Council on how students learn and how people learn. So, I think we can be proud of the influence we have had in the recent past on the practices of teaching and learning and what we know about student learning. I think we are clearly part of an increasingly larger group of interdisciplinary researchers who organize themselves around the learning sciences. I think we stand squarely in that group and are contributing dramatically to the work and progress in the learning sciences. I would say now we need to begin to think much more broadly and much more from an interdisciplinary perspective, because in my view this is where we can do much to inform the work of others in the learning sciences. We clearly can learn, as well, from the work going on in the neurosciences and in developmental biology. And in the future there is little doubt we will see a lot more of this cross-disciplinary work. How, in the long run, we fit inside the American Psychological Association, I have a little bit of a different perspective on that. We have been part of the APA for a long time now, and if you look back at the list of folks who have served as the Presidents of the Division, many of them have made a tremendous impact and influence on American psychology. So we are a formidable group.
MD: What forces outside of Division 15 have played a significant role in changing Division 15? Are there any specific political events, historical events, or other societal changes that have impacted Division 15?
HE: Yes, I think this whole movement of school accountability in the United States has implications for our work. We certainly have been asked to be and have been involved in the business of teacher training, professional development, you know, sort of trying to understand the connection between what goes on in the classroom, teaching, and how it influences learning. So at least the way I view it, the whole movement to make our schools more accountable and to improve our schools has given the Division and Educational Psychology as a field a great impetus for continuing work and investment. We need to know a lot more about individual differences in learning and achievement. We need to know a lot more about optimal forms of instruction and instructional design. We need to know how to prepare teachers better, and I am thinking of Richard Mayer in particular and his work on the psychology of domain learning. So what is the psychology of mathematics, the psychology of history learning, the psychology of science learning, etc? Those areas are still new, open issues, and they are potentially very, very rich areas for future research. So the accountability movement could drive our field in directions that could be very beneficial both for the field and for society.
MD: Have your interactions with colleagues, peers, or students changed since being President? Since being involved in Division 15?
HE: Oh yes, very, very much so, and very positively. More interactions, more quality interactions, people know me as a result of serving. I know them, and I have become much more well-connected with people who are really productive researchers and collaborators, and so my ability to collaborate productively really has been stimulated and increased wonderfully. In some ways it is a real professional blessing, if you choose to see it that way and take advantage of it. So I can pick up the phone and call just about anybody in the Division and they will take my phone call (laughs). They will actually say, “Hey, how can we work together?” or “What is it you are interested in doing?” or “How can I help you in doing what you are doing?” That is an enormous asset. I feel professionally wealthy as a result these experiences in Division 15. In turn I, too, am a resource and an asset to people. So, when you or Jenifer call, I answer the phone. I see us all as part of a community of social scientists and practitioners and scholars, and so I am happy to participate, and I am happy others want to participate and that they want to include me. It like being part of a good team. I cannot tell you how it has almost been magical the change and the doors that have opened in my career because of the visibility my work with Division has given me.
MD: What do you recommend for people going into the field of Educational Psychology now?
HE: One thing I would recommend is that they become very familiar with and masters of the various methodologies we use in our cross-disciplinary, social scientific community—both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. It really is important to become a master craftsperson, to learn the craft of research so our growing bodies of research are substantive and rigorous and can produce results or outcomes that can be relied upon. The second recommendation is I would encourage them to appreciate the breadth and the complexity and breadth of educational psychology. . In our field we can have on our radar screen, at any given time, just about all of the issues (theoretical, conceptual, methodological and political) related to learning in school and out of school. It seems to me it is so important for the development of the society, that I would simply encourage them to have fun, but take the issues and the work seriously, because you can have an enormous influence on the field. And the thing I think I would tell them is the same thing I tell the graduate students who work with me: Find the best people working in the area of your interest and try to work with them. Find the busiest people you can, and ask them to help you, because the busy people are the ones who actually get work done and will offer their help to you. I encourage folks to collaborate, become a real collaborator, and think hard about collaborative projects, because there just is so much that needs to be done and none of us can do it alone. The collaboration really is both productive and rewarding. So learn the methods. Do not shy away from the methodological rigor. I think that is what gives our work its power and its influence. I do not recommend that my students think any idea is too trivial or unimportant, or any area in the field of Educational Psychology is trivial or unimportant. That is for others to decide. And again, have fun and collaborate, try to find people and work with them, play with ideas with them, extend your knowledge, skills, and abilities to others who want to work with you. It’s a good recipe for a successful career these days. Be generous with your time and talents and others will be generous in turn.
MD: Is there a question I have not asked you that you think is important?
HE: Yes, I think it goes to the question of how to become involved in Educational Psychology and in particular the Division itself. I try to promote participation on the part of graduate students and young Ph.D.s , and I think there are lots of ways to become involved in the various committees and organizational meetings of the Division, writing for the newsletter, contributing to the Educational Psychologist. Many more of our young students need to know how to do that, to become connected to the community of practitioners. Our colleague Bob Sternberg calls it tacit knowledge, and you kind of learn it if you are fortunate enough to study with a prominent member of the community. But if you are not, and obviously not everyone can study with people like Sternberg and David Berliner and others, someone has to sort of show you how to do this and how to become connected, and I think the Division can do this. The work the graduate students have done in the Division has been really good in the past 10 or so years — how to get published, how to serve as a program chair, how to write grant proposals, how to enlist collaborators on a grant project — all of the stuff that is not always taught in courses, and you may or may not learn as you learn the craft. I think it is really important that the senior members of the community transmit their craftsmanship and sense of community, to the junior members of the Division so we function something like a guild, like scientists and artisans in the past who would share their knowledge with one another and sort of co-develop their disciplined-based communities in that way. Some of us have been blessed with having good strong mentors. I know I have, but I also know that is not everyone’s experience. I do not think those gifts are not equitably distributed, unfortunately. And I would like to see us do more about that, so we are nurturing and developing talent in the field.