Cynthia O’Dell holds a B.S. in Psychology from the University of South Carolina and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Psychology from Emory University. She is an Associate Professor of Psychology and the Director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Indiana University Northwest. Her primary research focuses on achievement motivation in college students. She has undertaken, with colleague Mark Hoyert, a series of intervention studies designed to increase learning goal orientation and emphasize the incremental nature of intelligence for at-risk students in freshman-level courses. Students exposed to the intervention have increased learning goals, higher grades and improved retention at the university. She also has pursued a line of research focused on gender issues within the Northwest Indiana region.
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