Jocelyn Parong

Biography

I completed my BS is Psychology at Washington State University (Go Cougs!). I also attended California State University San Marcos and received my MA in Experimental Psychology. I am currently a 5th year at the University of California, Santa Barbara completing my Ph.D. My research focuses on how people learn from games and simulations using various technologies. My dissertation examined the cognitive and affective mechanisms underlying learning from a simulation in immersive virtual reality. That is, how does this technology affect learners’ cognitive and affective processes, which then in turn affect learning outcomes from the lesson, relative to learning with traditional media, such as a desktop? Some of my previous research has looked at whether educationally relevant cognitive skills, such as executive function skills, can be learned from both custom and off-the-shelf computer games.