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Biography
Jiawen Wu is a sixth year student in Developmental Psychology. She received her BS in Psychology in 2019 at Fudan University in China and her master in Psychology in 2021 at University of Illinois Urbana Champaign.
Research Interests
Jiawen's research interests lie primarily in the area of parenting practices and children’s STEM education. In this vein, she investigates the roles of the quantity and quality of parents' involvement in children' math engagement and math skills development from both a cognitive and a motivational perspective. She is also interested in identifying parent-child math interaction context (i.e., homework, informal and formal activity) that could best foster parents' constructive involvement (i.e., math talk, autonomy support, affective components). These insights are intended to inform the development of interventions and educational programs designed to enhance positive parental engagement and support children’s educational success.
Research Description
For Jiawen's dissertation, she will investigate the characteristics of the three math learning contexts (e.g., math homework, formal math activities, informal math activities), including time restrictions, flexibility in adjusting difficulty, and options for activity types . She will explore how these characteristics influence parents' cognitive and motivational involvement practices, such as math talk, autonomy support versus control, and positive versus negative affect, in Study 1. Jiawen plans to design a math homework task that optimizes the most influential characteristics identified in Study 1. This will assess whether this optimization encourage parents to engage in children's math learning in more constructive ways, thereby enhancing children's motivation and skill development in math.
Awards and Honors
McVicker Hunt Award 2024
Courses Taught
Psych 216 U1 Child Psychology in 2023 Spring
Psych 216 U1 Child Psychology in 2024 Spring
Recent Publications
Wu, J., Oh, D. D., Hyde, D. C., & Pomerantz, E. M. (2024). Cognitive and motivational numeracy parenting practices: Implications for children’s numeracy engagement during early elementary school. Developmental psychology.
Wu, J., Barger, M. M., Oh, D., & Pomerantz, E. M. (2022). Parents’ daily involvement in children’s math homework and activities during early elementary school. Child Development, 93(5), 1347-1364.
Barger, M. M., Wu, J., Xiong, Y., Oh, D. D., Cimpian, A., & Pomerantz, E. M. (2022). Parents' responses to children's math performance in early elementary school: Links with parents' math beliefs and children's math adjustment. Child development, 93(6), e639-e655.
