Shea Ferguson's journey into the world of educational psychology began with a simple yet profound question: How can we better prepare teachers to understand the science of learning and development? Through weekly advising meetings with College of Education Professor Molly Dawes, Ferguson was able to hone in on a dissertation topic and learn about a fellowship that would be game changing for her research.
“Professor Dawes’ knowledge, expertise and interest in supporting me has helped me grow as a researcher and person,” says Ferguson. “We worked together on a paper looking at preservice teachers attitudes towards developmental knowledge and preparation and that is what brought me to my direct interest in teachers’ understanding and knowledge of child development. Her innovative thinking and desire to also enhance child development through supporting teachers, sparked my interest in this topic. I became profoundly interested in her work on this and all the dots started to connect.”
Her dissertation aimed to bridge the gap between theory and practice, focusing on how teachers can align classroom practices with the developmental stages of children. Ferguson’s work explores areas such as emotion and socialization, emphasizing the importance of teachers modeling emotional responses in the classroom.
“My main goal is to bridge theory and practice,” says Ferguson. “I teach a class for pre-service teachers in educational psychology, and I can see that my students understand the theories and they understand the classroom environment, but they sometimes struggle to understand how to apply what they are learning in college to the real world.”
Ferguson hopes her dissertation will identify how teachers could better translate their theoretical understanding into practical teaching methods. Her work will use a comprehensive study, surveying accredited universities across the United States and gathering data on teacher preparation programs. She will follow up with participants to best understand how they bridge the gap between theory and practice.
Ferguson was recently awarded the Elizabeth Munsterberg Koppitz Fellowship by the American Psychological Foundation. This highly competitive dissertation fellowship is given to only five awardees nationwide. Ferguson is the first-ever recipient at the University of South Carolina. Ferguson shares that this award is a gamechanger for her research. She will now be able to compensate her participants for their time and ensure meaningful data collection from a broad sample.
“During my research, I realized that teachers are a goldmine of information,” says Ferguson. “They are in the classroom with kids every day and can sometimes be the encouraging person that children need. This award will make a major difference for the scope of my project and create future opportunities to expand my research further.”
Shea's passion for education stemmed from her diverse experiences, from working in corporate America to studying biology and psychology.
“I realize I was an anomaly working my day job and taking evening classes for fun,” says Ferguson. “I got interested in psychology and that snowballed into a passion for teaching. Fast forward and I got involved in research because I knew that there were intersections between all my interests and experiences. I had been looking for a career that would make a difference and involve learning new things everyday. Educational psychology brought all of those ideas together.”
Ferguson ended up working for College of Education faculty researchers in the Child Development Research Center and the Institute for Rural Education and Development, focusing on whole child development and rural education.
Applying for the fellowship was a challenging process, involving extensive revisions and consultations with various experts. Ferguson’s hard work paid off, and she gained valuable insights for future submissions. She received feedback from multiple types of reviewers, tailored her submission to the fellowship guidelines and worked tirelessly to meet the deadline.
“I am not a qualitative researcher,” says Ferguson. “But to remain competitive for this grant, I needed to have a mixed methods project. My reviewers were honest with me about what I needed to include and I studied to understand areas that I lacked experience in.”
Ferguson is not resting on her laurels but already thinking of ways to expand her work.
“I know we do such great work as researchers, but we don’t always translate our work back to classroom educators. I genuinely want the work I do to matter for teachers. This fellowship launched that for me, and I’m so grateful. I want to make teacher preparation better, and I am excited to give teachers the opportunity to inform program structures.”