Essentials of Research Methods for Educators

Anastasia Kitsantas, Ph.D., is Professor of Educational Psychology and Director of the Office of Doctoral Studies in the College of Education and Human Development at George Mason University (GMU). She has also served as Director of the Educational Psychology, Research Methods, and Education Policy Division and as Academic Program Coordinator of the Educational Psychology Program. She received her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology with a specialization in Development, Learning, and Instruction from the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York. She has previously served on the faculties at James Madison University in the School of Psychology and at Florida State University in the Department of Educational Research. Prior to working in higher education, she taught in K-12 settings. Dr. Kitsantas' research interests focus on the development of Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) and student motivation across diverse areas of functioning including academic learning, athletics, and health. She has also studied the role of learning technologies in supporting student SRL. She finds joy in mentoring students to conduct research in these areas and has chaired more than 30 doctoral dissertations. She is the editor, co-author, or author of three books and over 150 journal articles, book chapters, refereed proceedings, and reports, many of which are directed toward the training of self-regulation. Her publications have appeared in diverse outlets across many fields such as educational psychology, teacher education, learning technologies, health psychology, and sport psychology. Her research output has been widely cited by others with more than 19,000 Google Scholar citations. In fact, she has been recognized as ranking in the top 2 percent of scientists worldwide based on research conducted from Stanford University that covered 7 million scientists in 22 major fields (Jeroen, Boyack, & Ioannidis, 2020). She has also presented over 200 papers or invited addresses at local, national, and international conferences. She has received funding support for her scholarship by various agencies. Currently, she is the Principal Investigator (PI) and a Co-PI on two projects funded by the Department of Education and the National Science Foundation, respectively. Both projects focus on the development of self-regulatory skills among school-aged students in literacy and STEM areas in preparation for postsecondary learning, the workplace, and lifelong learning. Dr. Kitsantas was awarded the Outstanding Dissertation Award by Division 15 of the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1997, and had been honored to receive the 2019 Barry J. Zimmerman Award for Outstanding Contributions to the fields of studying and self-regulated learning research by the Studying and Self-Regulated Learning (SSRL) Special Interest Group (SIG) of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association's: Division 15, Educational Psychology. She has excelled at teaching in a variety of course modalities and was awarded a George Mason University Teaching Excellence Award which is an institutional recognition for outstanding teaching and acknowledgment of the significant work that faculty members devote to teaching, advising, mentoring, and curriculum development. She is the former Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Experimental Education and has served on the Editorial Boards of a number of professional journals, including Contemporary Educational Psychology, Educational Technology, Research and Development, Metacognition and Learning, The Journal of Experimental Education, and many others. Dr. Kitsantas has been extensively involved in the profession and has held numerous leadership positions in professional organizations. She served as a Member at Large of the Executive Board of Division 15 of APA in 2011 and most recently served as the Chair of the Fellows Committee and the Webinar Committee. She has also been involved in the SSRLSIG of AERA as the SIG Chair, Program Chair, and Chair of the Barry J. Zimmerman Award Committee. She has been a panel reviewer for the Institute of Education Sciences, the National Science Foundation, and other funding agencies. She has developed partnerships with GMU and other universities abroad, taught abroad, and as an advocate for study abroad programs, continues to seed fruitful international collaborations.