Tamarah Smith, PhD, is an associate professor in the doctoral education program at Gwynedd Mercy University. She specializes in teaching methods courses, supporting students in developing dissertation methodology, and executing their data analysis. She also has more than 10 years experience teaching psychology methods courses, as well as specialty courses related to learning.
Her research focuses on the impact of statistics apprehensions; that is, the mindset, anxieties, attitudes, and other motivational factors that impact student learning in statistics. She has created and tested various interventions and measurement techniques to help dissect and influence the relationship between such apprehensions and learning. Her work has implications for the classroom in general; however, given her specific focus on statistics, it also has large implications for the current concerns regarding the quality of research methods in STEM fields such as psychology.
Smith has published and presented several pieces on statistics anxiety, attitudes, mindset interventions, and game-based learning in statistics. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Eastern Psychological Association and has served as a reviewer for several journals and associate editor for a special issue of Psychology Learning and Teaching.
Her work has been funded by the Society for Teaching Psychology, Psi Chi, and the Buzzallino Family Faculty Scholars Award. She served as co-PI on a National Science Foundation grant that incorporated her work with high-risk STEM majors. She has implemented her intervention work in statistics courses for psychology majors and developed and run programming to train tutors, high school teachers, and administrators, as well as college faculty to utilize mindset interventions in their classrooms and institutions.
Smith holds a doctorate in Educational Psychology from Temple University and a Master of Science in Applied Statistics from West Chester University.
