Amanda Nolen, Ph.D.
Assistant Director, Evaluation and Assessment
Amanda Nolen, Ph.D. is a Senior Academic Professional and the assistant director for Evaluation and Assessment for the Center for Teaching and Learning. After earning her doctorate in educational psychology from Baylor University, she became professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s School of Education, where she remained for 17 years before coming to Georgia Tech. Her research focuses on the motivational consequences of academic feedback, factors that influence academic motivation among marginalized student populations, and developing methodological guidelines to research academic motivation and belonging in academic medicine, engineering education, and science education. Her work has appeared in Educational Researcher, Routledge’s Theory into Practice, Educational Psychology Review, American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, and The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.
amanda.nolen@gatech.edu
Office
Clough 457
Teaching Interests
Educational Psychology
Assessment of Learning
Program Evaluation
Measurement in Research
Research Methods (Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Methods)
Curriculum Design
Research Interests
Student academic motivation in STEM (grades 8 through postsecondary)
Assessment feedback
Educational research across the disciplines
Education
Baylor University, Waco, Texas
Doctor of Philosophy – Educational Psychology 2002
Dissertation: A predictive model for high school academic expectations: Factors influencing middle school students, their parents, and their teachers.
Committee Chair: Susan Johnsen
Americorps Promise Doctoral Fellow: 1998-1999
Baylor University, Waco, Texas
Master of Science in Education – Educational Psychology 1997
University of North Texas, Denton, Texas
Bachelor of Science – Psychology 1991
Recent Publications
Assadi, A., Nolen, A., Vander Putten, J. (in press). Masculinity, mental health, and attitudes on willingness to seek help in male college-aged students. In K. Colquitt, Jr. and M. Carbonara (Eds.), Identify & Practice in Higher Education: Critical Praxis of College Men and Masculinities: Experiences at the Intersections. Information Age Publishing.
Nolen, A., & Flowers, E. (April 2026). Overcoming Doubt and Finding Belonging: A Phenomenological Exploration of Women’s Experiences in Male-Dominated Majors. Paper accepted for presentation at the 2026 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association in Los Angeles, CA.
Nolen, A., Lee, H., & Carruth, L. (August 2025). Shifting Priorities in Higher Education: Evolving Student Perceptions of Effective Teaching Before, During, and After COVID-19. Paper presented at the 47th EAIR Annual Forum in Utrecht, Netherlands.
Urmanbetova, A., Nolen, A., & Mazmishvili, A. (May 2025) From Equations to Education: Revolutionizing Teaching Preparation for Economics Ph.D.s. Paper presented at the 2025 AEA National Conference on Teaching and Research in Economics Education (CTREE) in Denver, CO.
Nolen, A. & Vander Putten, J. (April 2025) Mapping Knowledge Domains of the Scholarship on Department Chairs: A Scoping Review of Literature. Paper presented at the 2025 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in Denver, CO.
Pinneo, L., & Nolen, A. (2024). Parent involvement and student academic motivation towards science in 9th grade. Humanities and Social Science Communications, 11, 273. https.//doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-02707-0
Jariwala, A., Pucha, R., Pleasant, T, & Nolen, A. (2023). Peer mentorship model to enhance design engineering education. Paper presented at the 2023 ASEE Conference & Exposition. DOI: 10.18260/1-2—43874.
Wright, A., & Nolen, A. (2022). An observational protocol to measure learning in a problem-based learning vibrations course. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 151, A82.https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0010727
Nolen, A. L., & Talbert, T. (2021). Assessment as Learning: Fostering Belonging of
Underrepresented Students in the STEM Content Areas. Theory to Practice Series: Teaching on Assessment. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
