Janice Gobert

Professional Title
Associate Professor
Organization/Institution
About Me (Bio)
Janice Gobert is an Associate Professor of Learning Sciences and Psychology in the Department of Social Sciences and Policy Studies and the Department of Computer Science. She is the Co-director of the Learning Sciences and Technologies Program. Her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto (1994) is in Cognitive Science; her Masters is from McGill University, also in Cognitive Science. Her specialty is in technology-based with visualizations and simulations in scientific domains; her research areas are: adaptive tutoring for science, skill acquisition, performance assessment via log files, learning with visualizations, learner characteristics, and epistemology.

Before coming to WPI, Janice was a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University's School of Education, and was Senior Research Scientist at the Concord Consortium, an educational research and development organization in Concord, MA (www.concord.org). Until December 2007, Janice served as North American Editor for the International Journal of Science Education. She has been principal investigator on many projects, which address technology-based science learning and assessment.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI)
09/01/2007

This project addresses middle school students’ learning of science through the improvement of their inquiry science skills. The main goal is to develop a rigorous, technology-based assessment system for standards-aligned assessment of inquiry skills in six physical science content areas (i.e., Properties of Matter; Elements, Compounds, and Mixtures; Motion of Objects; Forms of Energy; and Heat Energy). Assessments are aligned with the Massachusetts Curricular Framework and National Science Education Standards.