Thomas Daniel Griffin, PhD
Research Assistant Professor
Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Contact
Building & Room:
1054D BSB
Address:
1007 W Harrison Street
Office Phone:
Email:
About
My two main areas of research deal with factors that affect the acquisition of knowledge, including the influence of prior beliefs and the self-monitoring of one's cognitive processes and knowledge states. How do immediate contexts, stable individual differences, and educational experiences determine whether one engages in evidence-based reasoning, versus merely accepting conclusions based upon affective preferences? Belief formation goals can produce deviations from normative rationality (both in process and output), independent of any cognitive constraints related to knowledge, skill, or ability. The belief formation process can affect the structure of mental representations, thus impacting the ability to accurately represent and comprehend new belief-relevant information. My interest in comprehension also includes metacomprehension. I am interested in both the methodological obstacles to assessing learners' introspective monitoring of their comprehension states and in discovering factors that constrain the accuracy of this monitoring. I attempt to integrate cognitive, social, developmental, and educational perspectives to gain insights for theory and practice concerned with long-term intellectual development in real world contexts.
Selected Grants
Project READi: Reading and Evidence-Based Argumentation in Disciplinary Instruction, Institute of Education Sciences, RFU, 7/1/10-6/30/15, $19.2 million, PI: Susan Goldman; UIC Co-PIs: Griffin, Goldman, Lawless, Pellegrino, Raphael, Shanahan, Wiley
Improving Metacomprehension and Self-Regulated Learning from Scientific Texts, Institute of Education Sciences, CASL, 8/15/07-8/4/12, $1,837,208, (Joint PIs: Thomas Griffin, Keith Thiede, Jennifer Wiley)
Selected Publications
Wiley, J., Steffens, B., Britt, M.A. & Griffin, T. D., (in press). Writing to learn from multiple-source inquiry activities in history. To appear in G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) and P. Klein, P. Boscolo, C. Gelati, & L. Kilpatrick (Volume Eds.), Studies in Writing, Writing as a Learning Activity. Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Griffin, T. D., Wiley, J., & Salas, C. (2013). Supporting effective self-regulated learning: The critical role of monitoring. To appear in R. Azevedo & V. Aleven (Eds.) International Handbook of Metacognition and Learning Technologies (pp. 19-34). Springer Science.
Griffin, T.D., Wiley, J., Britt, M.A., & Salas, C. (2012). The role of CLEAR thinking in learning science from multiple-document inquiry tasks. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education. 5(1), 63-78.
Redford, J. S., Thiede, K. W., Wiley, J. & Griffin, T. D.(2011) Concept mapping improves metacomprehension accuracy among 7th graders. Learning and Instruction, doi:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2011.10.007.
Thiede, K. W., Redford, J. S., Wiley, J., & Griffin, T. D. (2012). Elementary school experience with comprehension testing may influence metacomprehension accuracy among 7th and 8th graders. Journal of Educational Psychology, 104, 554-564.
Thiede, K. W., Wiley, J., & Griffin, T. D. (2011). Test expectancy affects metacomprehension accuracy. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 81, 264-273.
Thiede, K. W., Griffin, T. D., Wiley, J., & Anderson, M. (2010). Poor metacomprehension accuracy as a result of inappropriate cue use. Discourse Processes, 47, 331-362.
Griffin, T. D., Jee, B. & Wiley, J. (2009). Expert calibration of Comprehension: Examining the effects of domain knowledge on relative and absolute metacomprehension accuracy. Memory & Cognition, 37, 1001-1013.
Thiede, K. W., Griffin, T. D., Wiley, J., & Redford, J. (2009). Metacognitive monitoring during and after reading. In D. J. Hacker, J. Dunlosky & A. C. Graesser (Eds). Handbook of Metacognition in Education, pp. 85-106. Routledge.
Griffin, T. D. (2008). Faith: serving emotional epistemic goals rather than evidence coherence. In V. Sloutsky, B. Love, and K. McRae (Eds.), Proceedings of the 30th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society, Inc.
Griffin, T. D., Wiley, J. & Thiede, K. W. (2008) Individual differences, rereading, and self-explanation: Concurrent processing and cue validity as constraints on metacomprehension accuracy. Memory & Cognition, 36(1), 93-103.
Newman, L. S., Caldwell, T. L., & Griffin, T. D. (2007). The undesired selves of repressors. Cognition and Emotion, 1-11.
Thiede, K. W., Dunlosky, J., Griffin, T. D., & Wiley, J. (2005). Understanding the delayed keyword effect on metacomprehension accuracy. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition, 31(6), 1267-1280.
Wiley, J., Griffin, T. D. & Thiede, K. W. (2005). Putting the comprehension in metacomprehension. Journal of General Psychology, 132(4), 408-428.
Newman, L. S., Caldwell, T. L., Chamberlin, B., Griffin, T. D. (2005). Thought suppression, projection, and the development of stereotypes. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 27, 259-266.
Griffin, T. D. (2003). Learning: Formal and Informal Reasoning. Encyclopedia of Education, 2nd Ed. Macmillan Reference, USA.
Skitka, L. J., Mullen, E., Griffin, T. D., Hutchinson, S., & Chamberlin, B. (2002). Dispositions, ideological scripts, or motivated correction? Understanding ideological differences in attributions for social problems. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 470-487.
Notable Honors
2003, Upshaw Award for Excellence in Teaching, University of Illinois at Chicago
Education
PhD, Social Psychology, Methods & Measurement Minor, UIC, 2003
MA, Social Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1999
BS, Psychology, California State University, San Marcos, 1996