Nicole McNeil
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nicolemmcneil.bsky.social
Nicole McNeil
@nicolemmcneil.bsky.social
1.2K followers 370 following 80 posts
Cognitive scientist, Carnegie Mellon alum. Mathematical cognition, symbolic reasoning, and reading research. Advocate for high impact tutoring and #opensci. On, Wisconsin! 🏟 Go Irish! ☘️
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Reposted by Nicole McNeil
annarhaskins.bsky.social
📢 ✨ FFCWS Postdoc opportunity I'm leading at Notre Dame -- circulate and apply! ffcws.princeton.edu/jobs
Career Opportunities with FFCWS
View job openings with FFCWS
ffcws.princeton.edu
December 5, 2025 at 12:39 AM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
annarhaskins.bsky.social
Calling all Future of Families @ffcws.bsky.social data users, we're partnering with RSF @russellsagefdn.bsky.social to host a special issue in celebration of 25 years. Consider submitting! www.russellsage.org/publications...
Request for Articles - Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study: 25th Anniversary | Russell Sage Foundation
www.russellsage.org
December 3, 2025 at 12:58 AM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
annarhaskins.bsky.social
Some exciting developments with @ffcws.bsky.social at Notre Dame! Stay tuned for postdoc announcements and conference convenings!
ndsociology.bsky.social Notre Dame Sociology @ndsociology.bsky.social · 4d
@annarhaskins.bsky.social has used the FFCWS dataset to study inequality in the education system, family, and criminal legal system for nearly 2 decades. Now, the ND Poverty Initiative has awarded her (and ND Pop Analytics) generous funding to drive a new and exciting chapter of her FFCWS work.
A powerful new lens on poverty: Notre Dame expands access to landmark family study
How do family dynamics, schools, and…
strategicframework.nd.edu
December 2, 2025 at 3:25 AM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
chazfirestone.bsky.social
Well this is exciting!

The Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins University (@jhu.edu) invites applications for a full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty member in Cognitive Psychology, in any area and at any rank!

Application + more info: apply.interfolio.com/178146
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
apply.interfolio.com
December 2, 2025 at 3:18 AM
nicolemmcneil.bsky.social
Notre Dame has three *open-rank* faculty positions in the Institute for Educational Initiatives. These positions are part of a strategic initiative to build on our excellence in educational research and action--both within education and across associated disciplines. Details in thread.
December 1, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
neillewisjr.bsky.social
"The high-income admissions advantage at Ivy-Plus colleges is driven by three factors: (1) preferences for children of alumni, (2) weight placed on non-academic credentials, and (3) athletic recruitment...The three factors...are uncorrelated or negatively correlated with post-college outcomes..."
November 23, 2025 at 10:51 PM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
drbarner.bsky.social
Happy to share this new entry on numerical cognition for the OECS. Thanks to @hbaum.bsky.social and @mcxfrank.bsky.social for making this happen! Apologies if your work isn’t cited! Had to limit cites!!! oecs.mit.edu/pub/rek9756r...
Numerical Cognition
oecs.mit.edu
November 20, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
siobhangriffin.bsky.social
Arising out of discussions in @csi-research.bsky.social we conducted a Registered Report replicating Triplett’s (1898) experiment with over 400 children, showing children completed the task faster when paired with a coactor, compared to competing the task alone rdcu.be/eQwAE 1/3
A replication of Triplett’s ‘social facilitation experiment’
Scientific Reports - A replication of Triplett’s ‘social facilitation experiment’
rdcu.be
November 18, 2025 at 4:03 PM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
theonion.com
10th-Grade Prodigy Studying Mathematics At 10th-Grade Level https://theonion.com/10th-grade-prodigy-studying-mathematics-at-10th-grade-l-1819577209/
10th-Grade Prodigy Studying Mathematics At 10th-Grade Level
November 13, 2025 at 5:00 PM
nicolemmcneil.bsky.social
Fantastic opportunity to work w/ some of THE BEST sociologists of education in the world. We have vibrant interdisciplinary educational research community at Notre Dame. Spread the word. 📣
November 14, 2025 at 1:12 AM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
aeajournals.bsky.social
Forthcoming in AEJ: Economic Policy: "A Matter of Time? Measuring Effects of Public Schooling Expansions on Families" by Chloe R. Gibbs, Jocelyn Wikle, and Riley Wilson. www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...
A Matter of Time? Measuring Effects of Public Schooling Expansions on Families
(Forthcoming Article) - We leverage pronounced changes in the availability of public schooling for young children— through duration expansions to the kindergarten day—to better understand how an impli...
www.aeaweb.org
October 3, 2025 at 1:48 PM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
mcxfrank.bsky.social
Ever wonder how habituation works? Here's our attempt to understand:

A stimulus-computable rational model of visual habituation in infants and adults doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

This is the thesis of two wonderful students: @anjiecao.bsky.social @galraz.bsky.social, w/ @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social
infant data from experiment 1 conceptual schema for different habituation models title page results from experiment 2 with adults
September 29, 2025 at 11:38 PM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
devezer.bsky.social
Me: How much rice to fill 16 peppers for dolma?
Google AI: 12 peppers usually take 1 cup of rice. So for 16 peppers, you would need about 3-3.5 cups.
AI bros: AI will wipe out jobs!

Go eat at AI-run restaurants, you MFers!
September 27, 2025 at 7:36 PM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
perfors.net
Therapist: So, what are you doing with your one wild and precious life?

Me: Apparently, email. Also meetings

Therapist: That's not really...

Me: Tidying as well

Therapist:

Therapist: um

Me: Doomscrolling? What answer are you looking for
September 9, 2025 at 9:59 PM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
bradpostle.bsky.social
The Dept. of Psychology at the U. Wisconsin–Madison has an opening for an Assistant Professor in the area of Computational Neuroscience and/or Cognitive Science, with an emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI).

Domain of behavior or cognition is open. Details at jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/assista...
Assistant Professor of Psychology - Madison, Wisconsin, United States
Current Employees: If you are currently employed at any of the Universities of Wisconsin, log in to Workday to apply through the internal application process.Job Category:FacultyEmployment Type:Regula...
jobs.wisc.edu
September 9, 2025 at 9:08 PM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
asinclair.bsky.social
🌟 Excited to share that I'm recruiting PhD students in Psychology for my new lab at Rice University this cycle (Signal boost appreciated!)

To learn more, check out the Learning & Behavior Change Lab website:
www.sinclairlab-rice.com

Applications are due Dec 1st: psychology.rice.edu/graduate/pro...
Sinclair Lab
The Learning & Behavior Change Lab at Rice University, directed by Dr. Sinclair
www.sinclairlab-rice.com
September 8, 2025 at 3:45 PM
nicolemmcneil.bsky.social
"[Many psychologists] only care about what’s published in psychology journals. This might not be a bad career move... but... it's intellectually... disappointing."
September 10, 2025 at 1:29 AM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
amiyake.bsky.social
ANSWER: 0 (yes, ZERO!)

This is a result of an analysis done by a student in my grad seminar, using a large dataset (N=307,313).

What this result might mean: Nobody's personality is truly "average," and people's personality profiles (at least Big 5) might be more "jagged" than we think.

(🧵 1/5)
amiyake.bsky.social Akira Miyake @amiyake.bsky.social · Sep 6
Imagine you have Big 5 personality scores from over 300,000 people. You designate the scores in the "mean +/- 0.25 SDs" range for each trait (~20%) as the average range.

QUESTION: How many people in this >300K sample do you think fall in the average range for ALL 5 TRAITS?

What's your answer?
A figure from Simply Psychology illustrating Big Five personality traits: agreeableness, extraversion, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. This figure comes from: https://www.simplypsychology.org/big-five-personality.html
September 7, 2025 at 3:03 PM
nicolemmcneil.bsky.social
There's a teacher shortage in US classrooms. Andrew Kwok will be at Notre Dame to share how to strengthen the educator pipeline. He'll discuss how early teaching exposure can attract diverse, high-achieving prospective educators.

Join us, September 12, 1pm, Remick Commons. Open to the public.
Ad for Era Speaker Series at Notre Dame. Speaker: Andrew Kwok, Ph.D. Title: The Teacher Preparation Pipeline. Friday, Sept 12, 1-2 pm in Remick Commons. Photo of Andrew Kwok, Ph.D.
September 3, 2025 at 3:36 AM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
dingdingpeng.the100.ci
Ever stared at a table of regression coefficients & wondered what you're doing with your life?

Very excited to share this gentle introduction to another way of making sense of statistical models (w @vincentab.bsky.social)
Preprint: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
Website: j-rohrer.github.io/marginal-psy...
Models as Prediction Machines: How to Convert Confusing Coefficients into Clear Quantities Abstract Psychological researchers usually make sense of regression models by interpreting coefficient estimates directly. This works well enough for simple linear models, but is more challenging for more complex models with, for example, categorical variables, interactions, non-linearities, and hierarchical structures. Here, we introduce an alternative approach to making sense of statistical models. The central idea is to abstract away from the mechanics of estimation, and to treat models as “counterfactual prediction machines,” which are subsequently queried to estimate quantities and conduct tests that matter substantively. This workflow is model-agnostic; it can be applied in a consistent fashion to draw causal or descriptive inference from a wide range of models. We illustrate how to implement this workflow with the marginaleffects package, which supports over 100 different classes of models in R and Python, and present two worked examples. These examples show how the workflow can be applied across designs (e.g., observational study, randomized experiment) to answer different research questions (e.g., associations, causal effects, effect heterogeneity) while facing various challenges (e.g., controlling for confounders in a flexible manner, modelling ordinal outcomes, and interpreting non-linear models). Figure illustrating model predictions. On the X-axis the predictor, annual gross income in Euro. On the Y-axis the outcome, predicted life satisfaction. A solid line marks the curve of predictions on which individual data points are marked as model-implied outcomes at incomes of interest. Comparing two such predictions gives us a comparison. We can also fit a tangent to the line of predictions, which illustrates the slope at any given point of the curve. A figure illustrating various ways to include age as a predictor in a model. On the x-axis age (predictor), on the y-axis the outcome (model-implied importance of friends, including confidence intervals). Illustrated are 1. age as a categorical predictor, resultings in the predictions bouncing around a lot with wide confidence intervals 2. age as a linear predictor, which forces a straight line through the data points that has a very tight confidence band and 3. age splines, which lies somewhere in between as it smoothly follows the data but has more uncertainty than the straight line.
August 25, 2025 at 11:49 AM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
sarahpowellphd.bsky.social
Learn more about how keywords are not helpful for solving math word problems! ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
August 20, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
protzko.bsky.social
Kids These Days...behavior problems aren't changing.

In over 418,000 children from nationally-representative samples, child behavior problems are pretty similar as in the 1980s, with most changes being improvements, not declines.

Our work led by Zsofia Takacs
#psych #phdsky

osf.io/63egm_v1/dow...
August 14, 2025 at 12:29 PM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
jenna-m-norton.bsky.social
“Public support for science, and for public television, makes it possible… This isn’t a partisan issue. Because science doesn’t just live in D.C. or Silicon Valley. It lives here too, in small-town Southwestern Pennsylvania, in our families and our futures.”
August 19, 2025 at 10:36 AM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
ann-fiction-scied.bsky.social
Science is absolutely for everyone! And it's important to expose all kids to science at a young age. Thanks so much to the authors for this article. @scienceiselemental.bsky.social
August 19, 2025 at 1:01 PM
Reposted by Nicole McNeil
sciencehomecoming.bsky.social
A clear message about the value of science for Pennsylvania 🧪🏠
August 18, 2025 at 8:46 PM