I am a fifth year Ph.D. candidate (ABD) in the Department of Educational Psychology in the Cognitive Science of Teaching and Learning (CSTL) division at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

My research orbits the question: How do various psychological and contextual factors influence students’ learning and success, and what are the implications for equity?

News

• [April 3, 2024] I will be co-chairing and presenting in the symposium entitled “Reimagining Help-Seeking Contexts for Minoritized College Students: Toward Equity-Focused and Asset-Based Research at the 2024 American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting in Philly.

• [April 1, 2024] I'm so excited to annouce I will be panelist in the Graduate Student Council of Division C’s Fireside Chat entitled, “Graduate school is hard, let’s not make it any harder: Exposing the hidden curriculum at the 2024 American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting in Philly.

Education

• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Expected 2024
  Ph.D., Educational Psychology
  Area of specialization: Cognitive Science of Teaching & Learning (CSTL)
  Dissertation title: Understanding How First-Generation Black Women in STEM Navigate and Negotiate Academic
  Help-Seeking
  Advisor: Michelle Perry

• University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign , 2021
  M.S., Educational Psychology
  Advisor: Michelle Perry

• Mount Holyoke College, 2019
  B.S., Chemistry

Current Research

Currently, I am conducting research about the academic help-seeking experiences of Black women who are first-generation college students in undergraduate STEM majors (IRB #24254). If you want to learn more about this research or want to participate in the study, please see the flyer for more information or contact me via email.

Publications (*indicates peer-reviewed)

• Bosch, N., Williams-Dobosz, D., & Perry, M. (2024). Measuring help-seeking in online course discussion forums with privacy-preserving large language models. Accepted to be presented and published in the Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) 2024.*
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• Samudra, S., Walters, C., Williams-Dobosz, D., Shah, A., & Brickman, P. (2024). Try before you buy: Are there benefits to a random trial period before students choose their collaborative teams? CBE—Life Sciences Education, 23(1), ar2. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.23-01-0011*
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• Jeng, A., Williams-Dobosz, D., Bosch, N., Perry, M. (2023) Direct and indirect ways of being helpful in online peer help-giving interactions. Computers & Education, 205,104894. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2023.104894*
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• Williams-Dobosz, D., Jeng, A., Azevedo, R. Bosch, N., Ray, C., Perry, M. (2021). Ask for help: Online help-seeking and help-giving as indicators of cognitive and social presence for students underrepresented in chemistry. Journal of Chemical Education, 98(12), 3693 – 3703. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.1c00839*
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• Williams-Dobosz, D., Azevedo, R.F.L., Jeng, A., Thakkar, V., Bosch, N., & Perry, M. (2021). A social network analysis of online engagement for college students traditionally underrepresented in STEM. In M. Scheffel, N. Dowell, S. Joksimovic, & G. Siemens (Eds.) The impact we make: The contributions of learning analytics to learning, Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Learning Analytics & Knowledge (LAK ’21), 207-215. https://doi.org/10.1145/3448139.3448159*
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• Jay, V., Henricks, G., Bosch, N., Perry, M., Bhat, S. P., Williams-Dobosz, D., Angrave, L. C., & Shaik, N. (2020). Online discussion forum help-seeking behaviors of students underrepresented in STEM. In M. Grisafe & I. S. Horn (Eds.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Learning Sciences (ICLS) 2020, Vol 2. (pp. 809-810). Nashville, TN: International Society of the Learning Sciences. https://repository.isls.org//handle/1/6774*
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• Shah, A., Samudra, S., Walters, C., Williams-Dobosz, D., Lannen, A., & Brickman, P. (2020). Students’ choice of group mates: Avoiding conflict to enhance learning. The FASEB Journal, 34(S1), 1–1. https://doi.org/10.1096/fasebj.2020.34.s1.07578

Teaching Experience

• Cultural and Racialized Perspectives in Motivation Research. | September 2022
  Presented to the EDUC/PSYCH 709 Motivation in the Classroom Students at the University of Michigan.

• Equity in STEM Education and Help-Seeking. | September 2022
  Presented to the COLL-224 Being Human in STEM Students at Mount Holyoke College.

• Teaching Assistant, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Spring 2022
  EPSY 201: Educational Psychology, Discussion Section
  Course Evaluation: Ranked Excellent (4.56/5.0)

• Graduate Student Instructor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Fall 2019, Spring 2020
  EPSY 203: Social Issues Group Dialogue: Resisting Marginalization
  Course Evaluation: Ranked Excellent (5.0/5.0)

Honors and Awards

• NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program | 2021 – 2024
• UIUC ASPIRE Illinois Fellowship | 2019 – 2021