Main profile

Allan

Wigfield

Professor

Units: 

Human Development and Quantitative Methodology

Degree(s): 

Ph.D., University of Illinois

Contact: 

awigfiel@umd.edu

301-405-2809

3304L Benjamin Building

Role(s): 

Faculty

About: 

Dr. Allan Wigfield is Professor in the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, Distinguished Scholar-Teacher, and University Honors Faculty Fellow at the University of Maryland. He was appointed in 2015 as an Honorary Professor of Psychology at the University of Heidelberg. His research focuses on how children's motivation develops across the school years in different areas, and also on developing interventions to improve children’s motivation. In his intervention work he has focused primarily on children’s reading motivation and comperehension.  Dr. Wigfield has authored more than 130 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on children’s motivation and other topics, including the chapter on the development of motivation in the Handbook of child psychology (6th and 7th editions). He was Associate Editor of the Journal of Educational Psychology from 2000 to 2002 and Associate Editor of Child Development from 2001 to 2005. He was editor of the teaching, learning, and human development section of the American Educational Research Journal from 2007-2010. Dr. Wigfield has won numerous awards for his research and also for his teaching.