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Office Number:
Education 3135
Phone Number:
(805) 893-2601
E-mail:
education.ucsb.edu yukari
Yukari Okamoto
Professor, Ph.D. (Stanford University)
Emphasis:
Child and Adolescent Development, Teaching & Learning, Cultural Perspectives & Comparative Education
Research Interests:
Cognitive development; Cognitive psychology; Cross-national, cross-cultural comparisons of teaching and learning outcomes; Development of numerical, scientific and spatial understandings; Early childhood education; Mathematical cognition; Problem solving; Promoting female participation in mathematics, science and technology; Theories of the mind
Biography:
I completed an undergraduate degree in mathematics education in Japan. After coming to the United States, I studied at Stanford University, where I received a Ph.D. degree in educational psychology as well as an educational specialist degree in evaluation. My dissertation allowed me to pursue my interest in connecting theories from cognitive psychology and child development. The result was a domain-specific model of numerical reasoning that also reflected general developmental constraints of the mind. This study received a Spencer Dissertation-Year Fellowship for Research Related to Education.
My program of research is concerned with children’s thinking. In particular, I study children’s acquisition of mathematical, scientific, and spatial concepts. From a neo-Piagetian perspective, I have studied children’s conceptual development, provided instructional programs, and examined the question of culture and the developing mind. One important goal of cross-cultural research is to identify aspects of thinking that are relatively universal across cultures and aspects of thinking that are strongly influenced by cultural practices. One of the journal articles, based on the work on the relation between numerical language characteristics and mathematics performance, won an Outstanding Study of the Year Award by the International Studies Group of the American Educational Research Association.
I am also concerned with teaching and learning of mathematics and sciences. As part of this effort, I participated in the videotaped studies of mathematics and science teaching as part of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). At a much smaller scale, my colleagues and I have compared Japanese and US students’ and teachers’ understanding of rational numbers.
My recent research includes the development of numerical knowledge in mathematically gifted and non-gifted children, as well as observational studies of children’s experience with numbers and quantities at home and at school. I recently completed a cross-cultural, longitudinal study of preschool children during free play with their peers and teachers. Parallel to this work, my colleagues and I have looked at children’s learning of numerical concepts at home. Recently, my interest has broadened to include areas such as theories of mind. Non-human cognition is another new area of interest.
Recent Publications:
Moseley & Okamoto. Making it Accessible: What US teachers should know about Japanese mathematics teaching and schooling. Teaching Children Mathematics, 14, 387-388. 2008. [Journal Article]
Moseley, Okamoto, & Ishida. Comparing US and Japanese elementary school teachers’ facility for linking rational number representations. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 5, 165-185. 2007. [Journal Article]
Denney, Itkonen, & Okamoto. Early intervention systems of care for Latino families and their young children with special needs: Salient themes and guiding implications. Infants and Young Children, 20, 326-335. 2007. [Journal Article]
Roth, Druker, Garnier, Lemmens, Chen, Kawanaka, Rasmussen, Trubacova, Warvi, Okamoto, Gonzales, Stigler, & Gallimore. Teaching science in five countries: Results from the TIMSS 1999 video study of eighth-grade Science Teaching (NCES 2005-020). U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (pp 1-274). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. 2006. [Book]
Chan & Okamoto. Resisting suggestive questions: Can theory of mind help?. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 20, 159-174. 2006. [Journal Article]
Affiliations:
American Educational Research Association: Division C, Research in Mathematics Education SIG, International Studies SIG, Research on Gifted and Talented SIG
American Psychological Association
American Psychological Society
International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
Society for Research in Child Development
