九色视频

Dr. Kristy A. Robinson

Title: 
Associate Professor
Dr. Kristy A. Robinson
Contact Information
Email address: 
kristy.robinson [at] mcgill.ca
Phone: 
514-398-1607
Address: 

Education Building
3700 McTavish Street
Montreal, Quebec H3A 1Y2

Department: 
Educational and Counselling Psychology (ECP)
Areas of expertise: 
  • Achievement motivation
  • Developmental trajectories
  • Teaching practices
  • STEM education
  • Adolescence and early adulthood
Biography: 


Dr. Robinson's program of research focuses on understanding and supporting positive trajectories of achievement motivation, including students鈥 identities, values, and competence beliefs. Her investigations of motivational development and interventions to support motivation are aimed at expanding opportunities for diverse students in STEM fields through research that bridges theory and practice.

Dr. Robinson has two primary lines of inquiry. In the first line of research, she investigate developmental patterns of specific motivational constructs such as identity, interest, and competence beliefs during adolescence and early adulthood. I use variable-oriented (e.g., examining means and relations between variables on average) and person-oriented perspectives (e.g., examining naturally occurring 鈥減rofiles鈥 of variables or growth patterns) to document both average declines and heterogeneity in trajectories of these constructs. Her research contributes essential theoretical and practical understanding of who, specifically, experiences declines, which forms of motivation are more or less malleable, and why individuals might experience different developmental patterns. This understanding is needed for developing interventions, for example to understand whether an intervention should be administered to all students or only to subgroups.

Relatedly, students鈥 complex emotional experiences play a key role in their academic engagement and achievement. While most research on emotions has examined single emotions, controlling for other emotions, my research delves into students鈥 lived experiences at a more granular level, contributing to our understanding of how emotions co-occur within individuals and relate to motivational predictors and achievement-related outcomes. Using structural equation modeling and profile analysis, these studies directly test control-value theory鈥檚 central propositions while extending theory to account for complex emotional experiences. This work has implications for understanding which emotions are most facilitative in the classroom, as well as how these emotions can be supported.

Her second line of research focuses on theoretically guided classroom interventions that support students鈥 motivation and identity development. Introductory STEM courses can 鈥渕ake or break鈥 students鈥 competence beliefs, feelings of belonging, and sense of identity. To mitigate early declines in motivation, she combines student- and a teacher-focused intervention approaches, helping instructors incorporate motivationally supportive practices into their everyday instruction. This work employs a paradigm that considers motivation to be a contextualized, dynamic, and interconnected system working within and between students.

The goal of these two lines of research is to advance motivation theory to inform effective and equitable instructional support for students鈥 pursuit of their academic goals, particularly for students who have been traditionally underserved in education.

Degree(s): 
  • PhD, Educational Psychology and Educational Technology, USA
  • BS, Psychology, USA
Awards, honours, and fellowships: 

2024 President鈥檚 New Researcher Award, Canadian Psychological Association

2024 Outstanding Early Career Scholar Award, American Educational Research Association, Division C (Learning and Instruction)

2024 Wilbert C. McKeachie Early Career Award for Motivation in Education Research, American Educational Research Association, Motivation Special Interest Group

Selected publications: 

Robinson, K. A., & Shankar, S. (2025). Motivational trajectories and experiences of minoritized students in STEM: A QuantCrit examination of existing data. Journal of Educational Psychology, 117(3), 337-360.

Robinson, K. A., & Lee, S. Y. (2025). Same classroom, different affordances? Demographic differences in perceptions of motivational climate in five STEM courses. Journal of Experimental Education, 93(1), 110-135.

Greene, J. A., & Robinson, K. A. (2024). Bold, humble, collaborative, and virtuous: The future of theory development in educational psychology. Educational Psychology Review, 36, 132.

Johnson, C. D., Lee, S. Y., Diamant, R., & Robinson, K. A. (2024). Charting the murky waters of motivational climate measurement: Past approaches and future directions. Educational Psychology Review, 36, article no. 123.

Robinson, K. A., Zheng, Q., Shankar, S., Lee, S. Y., & Christiaans, E. (2024). Beyond self-report surveys: A comparison of methods for directly observing motivationally supportive teaching practices. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 76, 102254.

Robinson, K. A. (2023). Motivational climate theory: Disentangling definitions and roles of classroom motivational support, climate, and microclimates. Educational Psychologist, 58(2), 92-110.

Beymer, P. N., & Robinson, K. A. (2022). Motivating by measuring motivation? Examining reactivity in a daily diary study on student motivation. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 70, 102072.

Robinson, K. A., Lee, S. Y., Friedman, S., Christiaans, E., McKeague, M., Pavelka, L., & Sirjoosingh, P. (2022). You know what, I can do this: Heterogeneous joint trajectories of expectancy and attainment value in chemistry. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 69, 102055.

Graduate supervision: 

Reviewing student applications for 2026-27 (please see FAQ for applicants here:聽)

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