Profile  

Dr. Alexander received her Ph.D. in Reading at the University of Maryland in 1981.  Upon graduation she joined the faculty at Texas A&M University, where she held a joint appointment in the Departments of Educational Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Psychology.  During her 14-year tenure at Texas A&M, Dr. Alexander was made a Distinguished Research Fellow and served as the Chair of the University Faculty Senate, the primary governance body for the University’s 2500 faculty members.  She joined the faculty at the University of Maryland in 1995 and presently oversees the departmental specialization in Educational Psychology.

Her research addresses such topics as learning, individual differences, and the interaction of knowledge, interest, and strategic processing.  Recent publications have focused on the nature of academic development, particularly as it relates to domain-specific learning and to learning from text.  Dr. Alexander has been an invited scholar in the Netherlands, Singapore, and Australia and has been the featured speaker at various major research conferences, including the annual meetings of the National Reading Conference, the American Psychological Association, and the American Educational Research Association.

At present, Dr. Alexander is the incoming co-editor of Contemporary Educational Psychology, and Fellow and President of the American Psychological Association, Division 15 (Educational Psychology).  She is also Program Chair for Division C of the American Educational Association for the 2000 meeting.

Selected Recent Publictions    

            Alexander, P. A. (2000). Toward a model of academic development: Schooling and the acquisition of knowledge: The sequel. Educational Researcher.

            Alexander, P. A., & Jetton, T. L. (in press). Learning from traditional and alternative texts: New conceptualization for an information age. In A. Graesser, M. Gernsbacher, & S. Goldman (Eds.), Handbook of discourse processes. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

            Buehl, M. M., & Alexander, P. A. (in press). Examining beliefs about academic

 knowledge: Domain general or domain specific? Educational Psychology Review.

            Murphy, P. K., & Alexander, P. A. (2000). A motivated look at motivational terminology. [Special Issue]. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25, 3‑53.

Recent Grants

Title:                               A longitudinal and cross-cultural study of the analogical and mathematical 
                           reasoning patterns of young children

Investigators:                English, L. D., & Alexander, P. A.

Funding Organization: Australian Research Council

Dates:                           1996-2000     

Total Amount:               $117,000