Research Interests
I currently have two active programs of research. The first is comparative analysis of learning to read alphabetic and nonalphabetic languages, especially English and Chinese. The second examines children's intellectual and social development in the context of free-flowing open-format discussions.
Additional Campus Affiliations
Professor Emeritus, Educational Psychology
Recent Publications
Kuo, L. J., Lin, J. A., Anderson, R. C., Hu, X., Chen, Z., & Ku, Y. M. (2026). Vocabulary and morphological awareness and their relationship to reading comprehension in Chinese literacy development: conceptual and methodological issues. Applied Linguistics Review. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2024-0285
Ma, S., Anderson, R. C., Lin, T. J., Morris, J. A., & Sun, J. (2026). Aspects of the social construction of causal reasoning. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 35(1), 42-91. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508406.2025.2544619
Ma, S., Anderson, R. C., Lin, T. J., Morris, J. A., & Sun, J. (2025). Microdynamics of discussions that support the growth of causal reasoning. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 83, Article 102416. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2025.102416
Ma, S., Anderson, R. C., & Sun, J. (2023). Collaborative Reasoning and children's development of language and thought. In R. J. Tierney, F. Rizvi, & K. Ercikan (Eds.), International Encyclopedia of Education (4 ed., pp. 330-336). Elsevier Science. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-818630-5.07124-4
Sun, J., Anderson, R. C., Lin, T. J., Morris, J. A., Miller, B. W., Ma, S., Thi Nguyen-Jahiel, K., & Scott, T. (2022). Children's engagement during collaborative learning and direct instruction through the lens of participant structure. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 69, Article 102061. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2022.102061