Zheng Yan

Dr. Yan joined the faculty of the Educational Psychology and Methodology Division in the fall of 2001. Prior to that, he was Lecturer and Research Associate at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education.

Dr. Yan's research mainly concerns dynamic and complex relations between emerging technologies and human development. He has been studying three technology-based human behaviors: (1) computer behavior (e.g., how students learn to use computer software, how computer users develop Computer Vision Syndrome), (2) cyber behavior (e.g., how children understand the technical and social complexity of Internet, how Internet users make online decisions), and (3) mobile phone behavior (e.g., how school mobile phone policies impact learning and teaching, how mobile phone multitasking produces academic distraction). He is the founding editor of Human Development and Emerging Technologies and was co-editor of International Journal of Cyber Behavior, Psychology and Learning.

His current research focuses on cybersecurity judgment and human behavior with artificial intelligence. His recent books examine two fields of metascience: journalology and grantology. 

He teaches courses in the two major areas, (1) human development and learning, including Child Development, Lifespan Development, The Psychology of Computers, the Internet, and Mobile Phones, Seminar in Learning, and (2) research methodology, including Research Project in the Educational Psychology, Intermediate Statistics, and Seminar in Structural Equation Modeling.