Professor Rob Klassen

Profile

Biography

I am Professor and Chair of the Psychology in Education Research Centre at the University of York.

I began my academic career in 2004 in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Alberta in Canada and came to York in 2012. I previously worked as a teacher (1988-1992) and school psychologist (1992-2004) in Vancouver, Canada, with one-year stints in England (1998-99) and Australia (2003). 

My first two degrees (B.Ed. and M.A., Educational Psychology) are from the University of British Columbia, and my PhD (Educational Psychology) is from Simon Fraser University (2003). 

I am keen to communicate with UK and international academic colleagues and potential PhD students interested in developing and testing innovative methods for teacher and educational leader recruitment, selection, and development.

Research

Overview

An ongoing programme of research explores how motivation beliefs influence teacher effectiveness. Most of my current work applies theories and methods from educational and organisational psychology to strengthen the teacher workforce. Our Teacher Selection Project team conducts research and consultancy work to address challenges in teacher and educational leader recruitment, selection, and development. 

Research and consultancy work has been funded by the ERC (Consolidator and Proof of Concept grants), SSHRC (Insight and Standard grants), the ESRC IAA fund, the World Bank, and GIZ (German Development Agency), with current collaborations (2021-2022) in Australia, Germany, Hong Kong, Kenya, Morocco, and the UK.

You can view my Google Scholar profile here. Four recent representative publications are:

On teacher selection

• Klassen & Kim (2021). Teacher selection: Evidence-based practices. Springer, ISBN 978-3-030-76186-8.
• Klassen et al. (2020). Can we improve how we screen applicants for initial teacher education? Teaching and Teacher Education, 87, 102949.

On teacher recruitment

• Klassen et al. (2021). Attracting prospective STEM teachers using realistic job previews: A mixed methods study. European Journal of Teacher Education. 

On teacher development 

• Bardach et al. (2021). The power of feedback and reflection: Testing an online scenario-based learning intervention for student teachers. Computers and Education, 169, 104194.

External activities

Memberships

I am a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, a Chartered Psychologist in the UK, and a member of the European Association for Research in Learning and Instruction (EARLI).

International Links

I have ongoing research links with colleagues in Asia, Australia, Europe, and North and South America, and regularly serve on national grant review panels (e.g., in Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, and the UK).

Associate Editorships

• British Journal of Educational Psychology (Associate Editor)
• Journal of Educational Psychology (Editorial Board)
• Journal of Experimental Education (Editorial Board)