Jacqueline P. Leighton

font size decrease font size increase font size
Print Email

Bio and Research Interests

JACQUELINE P. LEIGHTON was born in Santiago, Chile and immigrated to Brazil (Rio de Janeiro) in 1975 and then to Canada (Calgary) in 1978. Leaving her homeland of Chile in 1975, two years after the coup d'etat and the start of the Pinochet dictatorship, which brought on significant human rights violations against those who spoke out against the dictatorship, instilled in her a lifelong commitment to independent, critical thinking, fundamental human rights, and specifically freedom of expression. This commitment is observed in her ongoing research interests in human development, cognition and its translation into fair educational methods and practices, inclusive of cognitive diagnostic assessment and think aloud interviews.

She completed her doctoral studies in psychology at the University of Alberta followed by postdoctoral studies at Yale University. She is also a registered psychologist with the College of Alberta Psychologists. She has won many awards for her research and collaborations, and now increasingly values serving as mentor and providing academic leadership in life-span development, humanistic psychology and equitable assessment. She is past editor of Educational Measurement: Issues and Practices (National Council on Measurement in Education).

Select Honors and Affiliations

Affiliate of the Child Rights Academic Network (CRAN), Landon Pearson Resource Center for the Study of Childhood and Children’s Rights, Carleton University, 2020
Award from the American Educational Research Association (AERA), Outstanding International Research Collaboration Award, 2017
Award from the American Educational Research Association (AERA), Significant Contribution to Educational Measurement and Research Methodology, 2009
Award from Canadian Council on Learning, MINERVA Scholar, 2008

Favourite Publications

Lutsyk-King, A., & Leighton, J.P. (2024). The conscious experience of thinking aloud: Are positive feelings associated with better think-aloud performance? Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, https://doi.org/10.1037/cns0000410
Leighton, J.P. (2023). Leveraging socio-emotional assessment to foster children’s human rights. Part of the Student Assessment for Educators (Book Series Editor - J. McMillan). Oxfordshire, UK: Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group).
Leighton, J.P. (2017). Using think-aloud interviews and cognitive labs in educational research. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Leighton, J.P. & Sternberg, R.J. (2012). Reasoning and problem solving. In A. Healy & R. Proctor (Eds.), Handbook of psychology (2nd ed.), Vol. 4 Experimental psychology (pp. 631-659). New York: Wiley.
Leighton, J. P., Gierl, M. J., & Hunka, S. (2004). The attribute hierarchy method for cognitive assessment: A Variation on Tatsuoka’s rule-space approach. Journal of Educational Measurement, 41, 205-236.