Publications

2019
Stephanie M. Jones, Michael W. McGarrah, and Jennifer Kahn. 2019. “Social and Emotional Learning: A Principled Science of Human Development in Context.” Educational Psychologist, 54, 3, Pp. 129-143. Publisher's VersionAbstract

Decades of research and practice in social and emotional development have left us with a

body of knowledge that tells us that (1) social, emotional, and cognitive development are

intertwined in the brain and in behavior and influence school and life outcomes; (2) social,

emotional, and cognitive skills and competencies grow in supportive relationships and are

influenced by experience and context; and (3) there are programs and practices that have

been shown to be effective in supporting these skills and competencies. The science of

social and emotional learning is distinct in that it represents a blend of the developmental

and applied sciences. In this article, we summarize a key framework that has guided much

of the research and practical work of social and emotional learning, and we synthesize the

major areas of research that have propelled the field forward. We then turn to what’s next,

describing and illustrating 4 essential principles that should guide work in the future.

2016
Steven Hurlburt and Michael W. McGarrah. 2016. Cost Savings or Cost Shifting? The Relationship Between Part-Time Contingent Faculty and Institutional Spending. New York: TIAA Institute. Publisher's VersionAbstract
Colleges and universities are relying heavily on contingent faculty to increase flexibility and reduce costs, yet little is known about whether such savings actually result in lower overall costs or if the money saved on instruction is being spent in other areas. This brief, Cost Savings or Cost Shifting? The Relationship Between Part-Time Contingent Faculty and Institutional Spending, the second in a two-part series, documents the financial trade-offs being made by institutions as they hire more part-time contingent faculty.
Steven Hurlburt and Michael W. McGarrah. 2016. The Shifting Academic Workforce: Where Are the Contingent Faculty?. New York: TIAA Institute. Publisher's VersionAbstract
This report, the first in a two-part series based on data provided by the Delta Cost Project at American Institutes for Research, profiles the contingent faculty workforce, examining the number and percentage of full- and part-time instructors not on the tenure track at a variety of colleges and universities. By exploring the relationships between those characteristics and the concentration of contingent faculty, the researchers seek to define the landscape upon which today’s academic workforce operates, and to identify whether contingent faculty are more likely to be employed in certain types of institutions.  
2012
Michael W. McGarrah. 2012. “The Development of Emotion Regulation & Children’s Age-Related Performance on the Emotional Interference Task.” University of Minnesota: Department of Child Psychology. Publisher's VersionAbstract
The present study examined the relative impact of differentially valenced affective pictures on the performance of a cognitive task in young children, ages 5-9 years (N=24). Stimuli consisted of a set of 90 positive, neutral, and negatively valenced pictures (30 in each category) taken from the International Affective Pictures System, and a pair of simple tones. Participants were required to indicate whether a tone heard was high or low within a four-second window, while viewing the affective pictures. Simple reaction times (RT’s) were recorded and compared by valence to investigate the relative “interference” of the emotional stimuli on task performance. Results indicated that both negative and positive pictures yielded slower RT’s when compared to neutral pictures. This effect was largest for 5-year olds, only modest in 7-year olds, and was minimally active in 9-year olds. These findings demonstrate a positive developmental progression in the capacity for emotion regulation in young children—and/or an increasingly fortified ability to direct attentional resources—at the intersection of emotion and cognition.