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GSE Profiles
 | Michael Ranney
Associate Professor
Cognition and Development
Office: 4655 Tolman Hall
Phone: 510-642-1551
Email: ranney at berkeley.edu
Website: | Staff Contact: Kate Capps
Office: 4533 Tolman Hall
Phone: 510-642-4207
Email: kate at berkeley.edu
M
ichael Ranney's research involves the nature of explanations, in both formal and informal domains. In work on explanatory coherence, he and his students model the nature and utility of human reasoning that is based upon both supportive and contradictory relations. They also generate curricula and artificially intelligent software designed to improve rational thinking. Michael Ranney's work on the representation and reorganization of scientific and societal knowledge illustrates the fragmentary nature of most lay people's knowledge of domains such as physics, biology, and immigration. His newest project studies reasoning and policy-making that involve socially important rates and statistics. He is also an affiliated professor in psychology. He has been a Spencer Fellow of the National Academy of Education and the Spencer Foundation and was a University of California Regents' Junior Faculty Fellow. Currently he heads the Reasoning Research Group and is a member of the interdisciplinary Cognitive Science faculty and the SESAME faculty. His recent publications include "Policy Shift through Numerically-Driven Inferencing: An EPIC Experiment about When Base Rates Matter," in Proceedings of the Cognitive Science Society(with E. Munnich et al., 2003); "The Perceived Consequences of Evolution: College Students Perceive Negative Personal and Social Impact in Evolutionary Theory," in Science Education(with S. Brem et al., 2003); "Education," in The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences (with T. Shimoda, 1999); and "Toward an Integration of the Social and Scientific: Observing, Modeling, and Promoting the Explanatory Coherence of Reasoning" (with P. Schank), in Connectionist and PDP Models of Social Reasoning(1998).
Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh, Cognitive Psychology
Areas of Specialization / Interests
Cognitive Development
Human-Computer Interface
Learner-centered Education
Learning
Mathematics Education
Policy Analysis and Evaluation
Research Methods
Science Education
Technology and Schools
Last Modified: 7/8/05
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