Title(s): Associate Professor

Education: Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Affiliations:

Faculty in the Educational Psychology Concentration of the Ph.D. Program in Education.
Faculty in the Graduate School-New Brunswick.
Faculty in the Learning, Cognition, and Development Masters Program.

Research interests:

My research addresses theoretical and applied issues in reasoning, epistemology, and conceptual change. I am interested in how students come to understand and believe difficult new ideas and in the development of reasoning. In my recent research, I have investigated step-by-step changes in knowledge as children learn to reason over an extended period of time. I am also interested in collaborative learning and problem solving in classroom contexts.

The various strands of my research explore "Thinking Across Perspectives." That is, I investigate how students learn across the curriculum by thinking about different perspectives and by reasoning about the evidence for and against different perspectives.

With Rick Duschl, I am currently working on an National Science Foundation Grant entitled "Promoting Conceptual Change in Reasoning." To find out more about this grant and about a graduate assistant opportunity, please click here.

Recent publications:

    Chinn, C. A. (in press). The microgenetic method: Current work and extensions to classroom research. In J. L. Green, G. Camilli, & P. Elmore (Eds.). Complementary methods for research in education (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.

     Chinn, C. A. (2006). Learning to argue. In A. M. O’Donnell, C. Hmelo-Silver, & G. Erkens (Eds.), Collaborative learning, reasoning, and technology. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

     Chinn, C. A., & Malhotra, B. A. (2002). Children's responses to anomalous scientific data: How is conceptual change impeded? Journal of Educational Psychology, 19, 327-343.

     Chinn, C. A., & Malhotra, B. A. (2002). Epistemologically authentic reasoning in schools: A theoretical framework for evaluating inquiry tasks. Science Education, 86, 175-218.

     Chinn, C. A., & Samarapungavan, A. (2001). Distinguishing between understanding and belief. Theory Into Practice, 40, 235-241.

     Chinn, C. A., & Brewer, W. F. (2001). Models of data: A theory of how people evaluate data. Cognition and Instruction, 19, 323-393.

     Chinn, C. A., Anderson, R. C., & Waggoner, M. A. (2001). Patterns of discourse in two kinds of literature discussion. Reading Research Quarterly, 36, 378-411.

     Chinn, C. A., & Malhotra, B. A. (2001). Epistemologically authentic scientific reasoning. In K. Crowley, C. D. Schunn, & T. Okada (Eds.), Designing for science: Implications from everyday, classroom, and professional settings, (pp. 351-392). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

     Chinn, C. A., & Brewer, W. F. (2000). Knowledge change in response to data in science, religion, and magic. In K. S. Rosengren, C. N. Johnson, & P. L. Harris (Eds.), Imagining the impossible: Magical, scientific, and religious thinking in children, (pp. 334-371). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

     Chinn, C. A., O'Donnell, A. M., & Jinks, T. S. (2000). The structure of discourse in collaborative learning. Journal of Experimental Education, 69, 77-97.

     Chinn, C. A. (1998). A critique of social constructivist explanations of knowledge change. In B. Guzzetti & C. Hynd (Eds.), Perspectives on conceptual change: Multiple ways to understand knowing and learning in a complex world (pp. 77-115). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

     Chinn, C. A., & Brewer, W. F. (1998). Theories of knowledge acquisition. In B. J. Fraser & K. G. Tobin (Eds.), International handbook of science education, Part 1 (pp. 97-113). Dordrecht, Holland: Kluwer.

     Chinn, C. A, & Brewer, W. F. (1998). An empirical test of a taxonomy of responses to anomalous data in science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 35, 623-654.

     Brewer, W. F., Chinn, C. A., & Samarapungavan, A. (1998). Explanation in scientists and children. Mind and Machines, 8,119-136.