Rebecca Edmunds, recent PhD alumni of the Department of Educational Psychology’s school psychology program, has been honored by the Behavioral School Psychology Interest Group (BSPIG) of the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) with the Ron Edwards Recognition for Outstanding Dissertation. Dr. Edmunds successfully defended her dissertation, “The Differential Effects of Elaborated Task and Process Feedback on Multi-digit Multiplication,” on April 2, 2020. She will receive her award at the 2021 NASP Convention which is being held virtually, February 23-26.

BSPIG presents this annual dissertation recognition in honor of Ron Edwards whose professional and research contributions in behavioral psychology spanned more than three decades. The award is presented to a school psychology student who has completed an outstanding dissertation on a topic that is behavioral in orientation, which merits special recognition, and has the potential to contribute to the science and practice of behavioral school psychology.

Robin Codding, PhD, associate professor of school psychology at Northeastern University and Dr. Edmund’s thesis advisor, described her dissertation as a “sophisticated analysis and methodology that illustrated importance of key learning principles.” According to Dr. Codding, the findings of Dr. Edmunds dissertation are significant because they show “deliberate opportunities to practice are important and that students with higher fluency and accuracy [in multi-digit multiplication] are able to make better use of such opportunities as well as apply more efficient problem-solving strategies.”

Congratulations to Dr. Edmunds on this well-deserved honor!