September 2023

AERA Fellow Michelene T. H. Chi has been named the 2023 Yidan Prize Laureate for Education Research. This prize is one of the most prestigious awards worldwide in the field. The news was announced on September 27 by the Yidan Prize Foundation in Hong Kong. Chi was inducted as an AERA Fellow in 2013 and was the 2016 recipient of the Distinguished Contributions to Research in Education Award.

In its announcement, the foundation stated that Chi’s work “forms some of the backbone of modern cognitive science. She analyzes and organizes theories about teaching and learning—deepening our understanding of how students learn and offering educators a simple yet practical framework to foster quality engagement in the classroom.”

Chi is Regents Professor and Dorothy Bray Endowed Professor of Science and Teaching at Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College and director of the Learning and Cognition Lab at Arizona State University. Her research centers on students' learning of concepts in STEM domains, focusing on "emergent" concepts about which students hold robust misconceptions. Among her other accolades, she is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association’s Division 7, the Association for Psychological Science, the Cognitive Science Society, and the National Academy of Education.

Andreas Schleicher, head of the Yidan Prize for Education Research judging panel, and director of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Directorate of Education and Skills, highlighted that “Michelene’s most significant contribution to educational research is a scientific theory of how students learn. She has organized profoundly different approaches to active learning into a simple, yet widely applicable framework—and she’s passionate about ensuring that this theory changes educational practice on the ground.”

AERA Executive Director Felice J. Levine serves on the Yidan Prize judging panel.

The 2023 Yidan Prize for Education Development was also announced. The recipient was Shai Reshef, Founder and President of University of the People. The foundation praised Reshef’s “achievement in mobilizing a global collaborative network to deliver a solution that is life-changing for so many.”