Nicole McNeil
nicolemmcneil.bsky.social
Nicole McNeil
@nicolemmcneil.bsky.social
Cognitive scientist, Carnegie Mellon alum. Mathematical cognition, symbolic reasoning, and reading research. Advocate for high impact tutoring and #opensci. On, Wisconsin! 🏟 Go Irish! ☘️
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
Thrilled to see the brilliant Ernest Morrell receive @ncte.org’s 2025 James R. Squire Award. @notredame.bsky.social and its Institute for Educational Initiatives are so fortunate to benefit from his example as a scholar and person.
NCTE's @anterobot.bsky.social and Emily Kirkpatrick presented Ernest Morrell, legendary scholar and director of the @notredame.bsky.social Center for Literacy Education, with the 2025 James R. Squire Award.

Morrell's book Critical English Education: Enduring Voices, New Perspectives is out Jan. 27.
December 13, 2025 at 9:48 PM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
Joyfully celebrating amazing colleagues! Congratulations Ernest!
NCTE's @anterobot.bsky.social and Emily Kirkpatrick presented Ernest Morrell, legendary scholar and director of the @notredame.bsky.social Center for Literacy Education, with the 2025 James R. Squire Award.

Morrell's book Critical English Education: Enduring Voices, New Perspectives is out Jan. 27.
December 12, 2025 at 10:19 PM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
Couldn't believe my eyes-- a new opportunity at NSF, in these times?!
www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...
Collaboratory to Advance Mathematics Education and Learning for K-12
www.nsf.gov
December 13, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
NCTE's @anterobot.bsky.social and Emily Kirkpatrick presented Ernest Morrell, legendary scholar and director of the @notredame.bsky.social Center for Literacy Education, with the 2025 James R. Squire Award.

Morrell's book Critical English Education: Enduring Voices, New Perspectives is out Jan. 27.
December 8, 2025 at 10:47 PM
Excellent, thoughtful piece on what exactly standardized testing trends tell us (or don't tell us). As Mike Jones at IU has cogently argued, big data can offer patterns, but we can't conclude much based on it alone-- we need more focus on studying mechanism. pershmail.substack.com/p/i-dont-kno...
I Don't Know What to Think About America's Declining Test Scores and Neither Should You
The case for confusion
pershmail.substack.com
December 7, 2025 at 3:35 PM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
📢 ✨ FFCWS Postdoc opportunity I'm leading at Notre Dame -- circulate and apply! ffcws.princeton.edu/jobs
Career Opportunities with FFCWS
View job openings with FFCWS
ffcws.princeton.edu
December 5, 2025 at 12:39 AM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
Calling all Future of Families @ffcws.bsky.social data users, we're partnering with RSF @russellsagefdn.bsky.social to host a special issue in celebration of 25 years. Consider submitting! www.russellsage.org/publications...
Request for Articles - Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study: 25th Anniversary | Russell Sage Foundation
www.russellsage.org
December 3, 2025 at 12:58 AM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
Some exciting developments with @ffcws.bsky.social at Notre Dame! Stay tuned for postdoc announcements and conference convenings!
@annarhaskins.bsky.social has used the FFCWS dataset to study inequality in the education system, family, and criminal legal system for nearly 2 decades. Now, the ND Poverty Initiative has awarded her (and ND Pop Analytics) generous funding to drive a new and exciting chapter of her FFCWS work.
A powerful new lens on poverty: Notre Dame expands access to landmark family study
How do family dynamics, schools, and…
strategicframework.nd.edu
December 2, 2025 at 3:25 AM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
Well this is exciting!

The Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins University (@jhu.edu) invites applications for a full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty member in Cognitive Psychology, in any area and at any rank!

Application + more info: apply.interfolio.com/178146
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
apply.interfolio.com
December 2, 2025 at 3:18 AM
Notre Dame has three *open-rank* faculty positions in the Institute for Educational Initiatives. These positions are part of a strategic initiative to build on our excellence in educational research and action--both within education and across associated disciplines. Details in thread.
December 1, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
"The high-income admissions advantage at Ivy-Plus colleges is driven by three factors: (1) preferences for children of alumni, (2) weight placed on non-academic credentials, and (3) athletic recruitment...The three factors...are uncorrelated or negatively correlated with post-college outcomes..."
November 23, 2025 at 10:51 PM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
Happy to share this new entry on numerical cognition for the OECS. Thanks to @hbaum.bsky.social and @mcxfrank.bsky.social for making this happen! Apologies if your work isn’t cited! Had to limit cites!!! oecs.mit.edu/pub/rek9756r...
Numerical Cognition
oecs.mit.edu
November 20, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
Arising out of discussions in @csi-research.bsky.social we conducted a Registered Report replicating Triplett’s (1898) experiment with over 400 children, showing children completed the task faster when paired with a coactor, compared to competing the task alone rdcu.be/eQwAE 1/3
A replication of Triplett’s ‘social facilitation experiment’
Scientific Reports - A replication of Triplett’s ‘social facilitation experiment’
rdcu.be
November 18, 2025 at 4:03 PM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
10th-Grade Prodigy Studying Mathematics At 10th-Grade Level https://theonion.com/10th-grade-prodigy-studying-mathematics-at-10th-grade-l-1819577209/
November 13, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Fantastic opportunity to work w/ some of THE BEST sociologists of education in the world. We have vibrant interdisciplinary educational research community at Notre Dame. Spread the word. 📣
November 14, 2025 at 1:12 AM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
Forthcoming in AEJ: Economic Policy: "A Matter of Time? Measuring Effects of Public Schooling Expansions on Families" by Chloe R. Gibbs, Jocelyn Wikle, and Riley Wilson. www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...
A Matter of Time? Measuring Effects of Public Schooling Expansions on Families
(Forthcoming Article) - We leverage pronounced changes in the availability of public schooling for young children— through duration expansions to the kindergarten day—to better understand how an impli...
www.aeaweb.org
October 3, 2025 at 1:48 PM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
Ever wonder how habituation works? Here's our attempt to understand:

A stimulus-computable rational model of visual habituation in infants and adults doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

This is the thesis of two wonderful students: @anjiecao.bsky.social @galraz.bsky.social, w/ @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social
September 29, 2025 at 11:38 PM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
Me: How much rice to fill 16 peppers for dolma?
Google AI: 12 peppers usually take 1 cup of rice. So for 16 peppers, you would need about 3-3.5 cups.
AI bros: AI will wipe out jobs!

Go eat at AI-run restaurants, you MFers!
September 27, 2025 at 7:36 PM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
Therapist: So, what are you doing with your one wild and precious life?

Me: Apparently, email. Also meetings

Therapist: That's not really...

Me: Tidying as well

Therapist:

Therapist: um

Me: Doomscrolling? What answer are you looking for
September 9, 2025 at 9:59 PM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
The Dept. of Psychology at the U. Wisconsin–Madison has an opening for an Assistant Professor in the area of Computational Neuroscience and/or Cognitive Science, with an emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI).

Domain of behavior or cognition is open. Details at jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/assista...
Assistant Professor of Psychology - Madison, Wisconsin, United States
Current Employees: If you are currently employed at any of the Universities of Wisconsin, log in to Workday to apply through the internal application process.Job Category:FacultyEmployment Type:Regula...
jobs.wisc.edu
September 9, 2025 at 9:08 PM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
🌟 Excited to share that I'm recruiting PhD students in Psychology for my new lab at Rice University this cycle (Signal boost appreciated!)

To learn more, check out the Learning & Behavior Change Lab website:
www.sinclairlab-rice.com

Applications are due Dec 1st: psychology.rice.edu/graduate/pro...
Sinclair Lab
The Learning & Behavior Change Lab at Rice University, directed by Dr. Sinclair
www.sinclairlab-rice.com
September 8, 2025 at 3:45 PM
"[Many psychologists] only care about what’s published in psychology journals. This might not be a bad career move... but... it's intellectually... disappointing."
September 10, 2025 at 1:29 AM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
ANSWER: 0 (yes, ZERO!)

This is a result of an analysis done by a student in my grad seminar, using a large dataset (N=307,313).

What this result might mean: Nobody's personality is truly "average," and people's personality profiles (at least Big 5) might be more "jagged" than we think.

(🧵 1/5)
Imagine you have Big 5 personality scores from over 300,000 people. You designate the scores in the "mean +/- 0.25 SDs" range for each trait (~20%) as the average range.

QUESTION: How many people in this >300K sample do you think fall in the average range for ALL 5 TRAITS?

What's your answer?
September 7, 2025 at 3:03 PM
There's a teacher shortage in US classrooms. Andrew Kwok will be at Notre Dame to share how to strengthen the educator pipeline. He'll discuss how early teaching exposure can attract diverse, high-achieving prospective educators.

Join us, September 12, 1pm, Remick Commons. Open to the public.
September 3, 2025 at 3:36 AM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
Ever stared at a table of regression coefficients & wondered what you're doing with your life?

Very excited to share this gentle introduction to another way of making sense of statistical models (w @vincentab.bsky.social)
Preprint: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
Website: j-rohrer.github.io/marginal-psy...
August 25, 2025 at 11:49 AM