Overview

Dr Abbie Cahoon has been a Lecturer in Psychology (Developmental/Cognitive) since 2021 and is a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy. Abbie completed a PhD exploring home learning environments, mathematical development across educational transitions, while also considering social and cognitive factors that can influence developmental trajectories. Abbie has held research positions at University College Dublin and Ulster University.

Twitter: @drabbiecahoon

OSF: osf.io/qpxrw

ORCID: 0000-0001-7587-6670

Research Focus

Abbie’s research specialism is in early mathematical development and mathematical cognition. Her research focuses on investigating the impact of learning environments on early development. Abbie is interested in the ways that children engage with and learn from their environments and the impact interactions and learning opportunities have on early child development and how this varies cross-culturally. Abbie is interested in the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) and how this is increasingly being integrated into early childhood experiences.

Research Interests

Abbie is part of several research projects. Play and Learning at Ulster and Sheffield (PLUS project) focuses on improving early mathematical skills by supporting home learning. Home Environments supporting Learning Mathematics (HELM project) investigates cross-cultural differences in home environment activities and their link to early mathematical learning. This project has increased the understanding of the home mathematics environment and its impact on early mathematical development in low-to-middle income countries (i.e., Cuba and Mexico). Abbie has designed and executed projects involving primary data collection of large-scale longitudinal studies such as, Children’s School Lives (CSL; 2018-2026) which explores the experiences of over 4000 children in 189 primary schools across Ireland and longitudinal projects aimed at understanding how preschool children develop mathematical skills overtime, during school transitions. Abbie strongly supports Open Research approaches and strives to make their work as transparent and reproducible as possible. You can access Abbie’s Open Science Framework project page, which has project details, pre-registration plans, shared material such as the Pre-School Home Mathematics Questionnaire that measures mathematical activity at home which is available in both English and Spanish, as well as R scripts and open data.

Research Awards

Abbie’s research has been funded by Nuffield Foundation (£223,580), British Academy and Global Challenges Research Fund (£252,000) and National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA). Abbie has been successful in tenders for rapid reviews funded by Education Authority (£42,573), and bids for international research workshops funded by Official Development Assistance (ODA) Research Development Strategy Fund (£13,116) and national research workshops funded by Experimental Psychology Society (£4,500) as well as, local workshops such as, Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Social Sciences Festival and NI Science Festival.

Teaching

Current teaching:

PSY568: Current Trends in Psychological Research

PSY561: Advanced Topics in Developmental Psychology

PSY305: Developmental Psychology

Contributes to:

PSY309: Cognitive Psychology

PSY131: Introduction to Psychology

PSY105: Introduction to Research Methods

Abbie developed and is the module coordinator of PSY568: Current Trends in Psychological Research introducing Open Research Practices into the B.Sc. Psychology curriculum. Abbie also developed curriculum for PSY724 Cognitive Psychology (M.Sc. Psychology Conversion course). Abbie contributes to training within the Doctoral College and Ulster University's Summer School.

Research Supervision

Abbie supervises research students from the B.Sc. Psychology, Master of Research (MRes), and M.Sc. Applied Psychology. Abbie has supervised PhD students to completion.

Administrative Roles and Memberships

Abbie is committed to Open Research Practices and is the Open Research Lead within the School of Psychology. Abbie is a committee member of the Inter-professional Education (IPE) Festival Organisation. Abbie is a member of the School’s Staff and Postgraduate Ethics Filter Committee. Abbie was the Chairperson and Early Career Representative of the Centre of Longitudinal Studies Ireland (CLSI).

National Teaching Fellow

Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society (BPS).