Penn GSE Faculty Publications: Summer 2026

How do Chinese mothers’ visions for their children’s futures shape how they parent today? What role can parents play in improving adolescent sleep? How do middle school teachers learn to coach their peers in history instruction? New publications from Penn GSE researchers take up these questions and more.

Here’s a look at some of the books, articles, and chapters published by Penn GSE faculty and researchers this summer.

Megan Botello: “Worked Examples and Self-Explanation Prompts: Elementary Students’ Mathematics Motivation and Error Perceptions” (The Journal of Experimental Education)
Lecturer Megan Botello and her co-authors examined whether supplemental materials using worked examples and self-explanation prompts affected elementary students’ motivation in math. While students who used the materials did not differ significantly in their motivational beliefs from a control group, students who viewed errors as useful opportunities for learning had higher math achievement, even after accounting for other motivational factors. This study was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences as part of award R305A150456, totaling $1,499,889, with 0% financed by nongovernmental sources.

Manuel González Canché: Data Science, Interactive Visualizations, and Generative AI: Tools for the Analysis of Qualitative, Mixed-Methods, and Multimodal Evidence (Morgan Kaufmann/Elsevier)
In his new book, Professor Manuel González Canché introduces a suite of no-code, locally run tools designed to make advanced data science and AI methods more accessible to qualitative and mixed-methods researchers. The approach allows researchers to analyze text, networks, time, emotion, location, and other forms of complex evidence while maintaining control over sensitive data.

Wendy Chan: “Modeling Demographic Change in NYC’s Gifted Education Program Using the Representation Index” (Gifted Child Quarterly)
Former Penn GSE doctoral student Katherine Strickland and her advisor, Associate Professor Wendy Chan, examined demographic representation in New York City’s Gifted and Talented program from 2010 to 2023. Drawing on data from more than 1.3 million students, the study found persistent underrepresentation of Black, Hispanic, and low-income students. Participation among Black and Hispanic students increased following recent changes to the admissions process, including universal screening, but substantial disparities remained.

Michael Nakkula: “Envisioning Forward, Parenting Now: How Chinese Mothers’ Perceptions of Adolescents’ Possible Selves Motivate Their Current Parenting Practices” (Journal of Adolescent Research)
Co-authored by Professor of Practice Michael Nakkula and former Penn GSE doctoral and master’s students Lingyan Hu, Hou Xie, Jing Lin, and Qinglin Bian, the study explores how mothers of high school students in urban China envision their children’s futures and how those visions shape their parenting in the present. The findings highlight how mothers balance long-term hopes for their children’s overall development and autonomy with more immediate concerns about academic achievement and preparation for college entrance examinations.

Justin Parent: “Family-Based Treatment for Sleep Problems in Peri-Puberty: Preliminary Outcomes from a Group Telehealth Program Evaluation” (Evidence-Based Practice in Child and Adolescent Mental Health)
Associate Professor Justin Parent and his co-authors evaluated a family-based telehealth program designed to improve sleep among young people transitioning into adolescence. Preliminary findings showed improvements in participants’ sleep and mental health, as well as promising changes in parenting practices, supporting further study of parents as active partners in addressing adolescent sleep problems. The research was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development under grant F31HD101257 totaling $71,154, with 0% financed by nongovernmental sources.

Julie Petersen: “Who is the ideal match for the modular approach to therapy for children (MATCH)? Symptom moderators of transdiagnostic treatment response” (Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology)
Assistant Professor Julie Petersen and her co-authors examined outcomes of the Modular Approach to Therapy for Children with Anxiety, Depression, Trauma, or Conduct Problems (MATCH), a flexible treatment designed to address a range of youth mental health and behavioral concerns. Drawing on data from three randomized controlled trials involving 400 young people, the study found symptom improvements across problem areas, with youth reports showing the greatest reductions among those experiencing both internalizing and externalizing symptoms or internalizing symptoms alone.

Linda Pheng: “Learning From and Alongside Each Other: A Humanizing Approach to Team-Based Ethnography” (Anthropology & Education Quarterly)
Drawing on seven years of team-based ethnographic research with Hmong communities in Wisconsin, Assistant Professor Linda Pheng and her co-authors examine how relationships among researchers shape the research process itself. They argue that care and trust within research teams are essential to conducting humanizing, community-engaged ethnographic research.

Christopher Pupik-Dean and Tawanna Jones: “Leading Program-Level Change: Reflections on the Development of a CRSE-Aligned Fieldwork Rubric” (in Transformative Teacher Education: Disrupting Pedagogy, Practice, and Ideology to Forge Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Education)
Christopher Pupik Dean, senior fellow and director of Penn GSE’s Urban Teaching Apprenticeship Program and Tawanna Jones, the program’s associate director, reflect on the process of translating culturally relevant and sustaining education competencies into practice within a master’s-level teacher education program. The chapter describes the development of a fieldwork rubric for assessing student teachers’ progress and explores the leadership challenges involved in implementing program-level change.

Abby Reisman: “Learning to Coach as Identity Development: Examining Novice History Coaches Through the Lens of the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity” (Teachers College Record)
Co-authored by Associate Professor Abby Reisman and Penn GSE doctoral student Lindsey Graham, the study examines two middle school teacher leaders as they learned to coach colleagues in history instruction. The findings suggest that learning to coach involves not only developing new skills but also developing a new professional identity shaped by coaches’ beliefs, experiences, relationships, and working environments.