Barbara K. Hofer

Barbara Hofer is a Professor of Psychology Emerita at Middlebury College and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan from the Combined Program in Education and Psychology, with a certificate in Culture and Cognition, and an Ed.M. in Human Development from Harvard University. She is the recipient of the Review of Research Award from the American Educational Research Association (with Paul Pintrich) and the McKeachie Early Career Teaching Award from the American Psychological Association. She has published several dozen articles and book chapters, and co-edited the book Personal Epistemology: The Psychology of Beliefs about Knowledge and Knowing, and co-authored the book The iConnected Parent: Staying Close to Your Kids in College (and Beyond) while Letting Them Grow Up, and Science Denial: Why It Happens and What to Do About It (2021, with Gale Sinatra).

Her research interests focus on learning and psychosocial development, particularly in adolescence and the college years, and on the psychological aspects of the public understanding of science. This work includes: 1) the development of epistemic cognition (beliefs about knowledge and knowing), research funded by the National Science Foundation; 2) the development of self-regulation and autonomy during the college years, and how this is related to contact with parents through emerging technology; and 3) psychological explanations for science denial, doubt, and resistance. She has also worked on cross-national studies of achievement and the interrelationship of mind and culture, and spent two sabbaticals as a faculty fellow at Doshisha University in Kyoto and two as a visiting faculty fellow at DIS Abroad in Copenhagen.