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I am interested in how people perform complex cognitive
tasks such as reading, learning, remembering, and reasoning. Performance
of all these tasks depends on an intricate interplay between knowledge,
memory, attention, and cognitive strategies. My students and I investigate
these processes primarily in the area of reading comprehension. What are
the cognitive and neurological processes that take place during comprehension?
How do children and adults differ, and what are the unique problems encountered
by students with special needs?
Answers to these questions help us to gain a theoretical
understanding of learning and cognition and have important implications
for instructional practice. For example, they form the basis for the design
of effective reading and higher-order thinking skills programs, for the
construction of classroom materials, and for the prevention and remediation
of reading and learning problems.
Currently, we are engaged in several lines of research.
Some concern basic theoretical questions, whereas others focus on developmental
issues or on applications to educational settings. For example, with regard
to basic cognitive research, we are investigating the neurological basis
of inference making during reading using Split-Visual Field and fMRI techniques
and—in related research—are developing and testing the
Landscape Model, a
theoretical-computational model of the complete comprehension process.
With regard to developmental issues, we are investigating
how comprehension skills develop in preschool and elementary school children,
and how one might foster the development of such skills, for example through
the creative use of television.
Finally, with regard to applications, we are exploring how
one might improve texts and instruction to allow as many students as possible
to become successful comprehenders.
My students and I publish in journals in cognitive psychology,
educational psychology, developmental psychology, and occasionally in journals
in related applied areas such as second language learning and special education.
I have been awarded the College's Distinguished Teaching Award.
Dr. Van den Broek is also an adjunct professor in both the Department
of Psychology and the
Institute of Child Development.
He was director of the Center for Cognitive
Sciences from 1995 to 1999. He is currently co-director of the
Minnesota Interdisciplinary Training
in Education Research (MITER) program. Students interested in
full-time Ph.D. study and the application of interdisciplinary research
to problems in education may be interested in the MITER Program.
Courses I teach
(all EPSY courses)
- CPSY 4994—Directed Research in Child Psychology
- EPSY 5114—Psychology of Student Learning
- EPSY 8116—Reading for Meaning: Cognitive Processes in the Comprehension
of Texts
- EPSY 8117—Writing Empirical Paper and Research/Grant Proposals in
Education and Psychology
- EPSY 8993—Directed Study in Educational Psychology
- EPSY 8994—Directed Research in Educational Psychology
- Psy 3990—Psychology of Language
- Psy 3994—Directed Research in Psychology
Selected publications
van den Broek, P., Tzeng, Y., Risden, K., Trabasso,
T., & Basche, P. (2001). The effects of questioning during and after reading
on comprehension at different grades. Journal of Educational Psychology,
93, 521-529.
van den Broek, P., Lorch, R. F. Jr., Linderholm, T.,
& Gustafson, M. (2001). The effects of readers’ goals on inference generation
and memory for texts. Memory and Cognition, 29, 1081-1087.
van den Broek, P., & Kremer, K. (2000). The mind in
action: What it means to comprehend. In B. Taylor, P. van den Broek, & M.
Graves (Eds.), Reading for meaning, pp. 1-31. New York: Teacher’s
College Press.
van den Broek, P., Young, M., Tzeng, Y., & Linderholm,
T. (1999). The landscape model of reading: Inferences and the on-line construction
of a memory representation. In H. van Oostendorp & S. R. Goldman (Eds.),
The construction of mental representations during reading (pp. 71-98).
Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Revised July 2004
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