Dr. Yooyeun Hwang is an educational psychologist whose Hope courses include Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity, which features a field placement component. In this diversity class, students explore social and cognitive development, as well as critical cultural and environmental factors that affect human development and learning. She also teaches a Senior Seminar course for education students, focusing on what it means to be a healthy person.

Dr. Hwang’s current research focuses on investigating culturally responsive and sustaining teaching and learning in the context of religion. She has also conducted empirical research on memory strategies, single-case studies, and project-based learning in secondary mathematics education. She frequently involves education majors in her projects or advises them on their research. Dr. Hwang is a member of the American Educational Research Association.

Since joining Hope’s Department of Education in 1996, Dr. Hwang has participated in several off-campus programs. She taught a May Term course at the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. She spent a semester-long sabbatical teaching undergraduates and graduate students at the Catholic University of Korea. Additionally, she participated in Hope’s faculty exchange program at Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo, teaching classes at both the Tokyo and Yokohama campuses.

Areas of expertise

• Educational psychology
• Cognitive science applied to education
• Learning strategies
• Project-based learning

Education 

• Ph.D., educational psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1996
• M.A., educational psychology, University of California-Santa Barbara, 1990
• B.S., home economics, Sacred Heart College for Women (South Korea), 1983

Selected honors, grants and awards

• “Project-Based Learning for Secondary-Mathematics Students,” Jobe & Julie Morrison Family Faculty Development Fund grant, 2014
• “The Effects of Project-Based Learning (PBL) Approach on the Achievement and Efficacy of High School Mathematics Students,” Hope College Frost Center grant, 2011
• Excellent Lecturer Award, Catholic University of Korea, 2011
• “Empirical Study on the Development of Reflective Judgment Skills and Multicultural Education,” Hope College Summer Development Grant, 2008

Selected publications 

• “Religious Diversity and Culturally Responsive Learning and Teaching for Teacher Candidates,” with Ronald Wolthuis, Suleyman Kasap and Richard Peterson, Multicultural Learning and Teaching, 2024
• “Demonstration of Single-Case Two-Sample Randomization-Test Procedures: Underperforming Children’s Implementation of an Effective Memory Strategy,” with Joel R. Levin, Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk (JESPAR), 2022
• “Application of a single-case intervention procedure to assess the replicability of a two-component instructional strategy,” with J. R. Levin, Contemporary Educational Psychology, 2019
• “Pictorial Mnemonic Strategy Interventions for Children with Special Needs: Illustration of a Multiply Randomized Single Case Crossover Design,” with J. Levin and E. Johnson, Developmental Neurorehabilitation, 2018
• “Exploring the Effects of Project Based Learning (PBL) in Secondary Mathematics Education,” with V. Holmes, Journal of Educational Research, 2016

Outside the college

Dr. Hwang is a member of St. Francis de Sales Church in Holland.