Dr. Mike Yough

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Mike Yough (Ph.D., The Ohio State University) serves as a Professor and Coordinator of the Educational Psychology Program and Director of the Motivation in Classrooms Lab.

 

Dr. Yough’s research interests include teacher beliefs and social cognition and their effects on student motivation—especially for those students who differ from their teacher in terms of linguistic and cultural background. Specific areas of interest include social perspective-taking, teachers' sense of efficacy, teachers' sense of responsibility, and sense of school belonging. His work has appeared in International Journal of Education Research, Motivation and Emotion, Educational and Child Psychology, Educational and Developmental Psychologist, The Counseling Psychologist, Journal of Teacher Education, Higher Education, and Learning Environments Research. He served as series co-editor for Theory to Practice: Educational Psychology for Teachers and Teaching, and co-editor of the books, Teaching to Prepare Advocates and Preparing Teachers to Work with English Language Learners in Mainstream Classrooms. He sits on the review board for Theory into Practice, Educational and Developmental Psychologist, and Frontiers in Psychology.

 

Dr. Yough was a Fulbright Scholar based in Universidad del Norte (Colombia) in 2024. This work entailed conducting research on teacher-student relationships and hosting a workshop for area teachers who designed their own action research studies based on the content of the workshop and presented their results to colleagues across the city of Barranquilla. He was a Visiting Scholar at Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla (UPAEP, Mexico) in Spring 2023 where he gave several guest lectures and team-taught the graduate class, Temas Selectos de Procesos Educativos (Selected Topics of Educational Processes). Dr. Yough has also sponsored visiting scholars from UPAEP and Universidad del Norte who have worked closely with the Motivation in Classrooms Lab.

 

Dr. Yough has served in various leadership roles within the College of Education and Human Sciences (e.g., Chair of the Faculty Advisory Council), the university (e.g., Chair of Academic Standards and Policies Committee), and his disciplinary field (e.g., Program Chair of the American Psychological Association’s Educational Psychology Division). He was recognized as the College of Education and Human Science’s Outstanding Leadership and Service Excellence Award for 2024.

 

He and his dog Theo serve as a team in Pete's Pet Posse. He is an active member of the community serving on the board of the Payne County Audubon Society.