Tessa Jordan
Associate Professor - Developmental Psychology
- B.A, Ph.D., University of New Mexico
Outstanding Advising and Student Services Award 2023
Office: 2127 Au Sable Hall
Phone: (616) 331-9236
Email: [email protected]
Specialization
Developmental Psychology
Courses Taught
PSY 301 Child Development
PSY 305 Infant and Early Childhood Development
PSY 364 Life Span Development
PSY 493 Psych Friends Practicum I
PSY 494 Psych Friends Practicum II
Research Interests
My research in developmental psychology investigates cognitive development in early childhood, with a specific emphasis on how children form complex concepts. I examine the nature of developmental change by asking questions such as: "How do preschool-aged children distinguish between living and non-living entities?" and "How does a child’s understanding of identity and the 'Mental Timeline' develop over time?" Currently, my work explores how immersion education influences auditory processing, specifically investigating whether Mandarin immersion—due to the tonal nature of the language—enhances musical pitch perception compared to traditional English-only education. My methodological approach relies on school-based field research at local preschools and elementary schools, where I utilize behavioral tasks and structured questioning to measure cognitive performance and developmental shifts.
Publications
Autry, K.S., Jordan, T., Girgis, H., & Falcon, R. (2020). The development of young children's mental timeline in relation to emergent literacy skills. Journal of Cognition and Development, 21, 1-22.
Margett-Jordan, T., Falcon, R. G. & Witherington, D. C. (2017). The development of preschoolers' living kinds concept: A longitudinal study. Child Development, 88, 1350-1367.
Gaspelin, N., Margett-Jordan, T., & Ruthruff, E. (2014). Susceptible to distraction: Children lack top-down control over spatial attention capture. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 22, 461-468.
Margett, T. E. & Witherington, D. C. (2011) The nature of preschoolers' concept of living and artificial objects. Child Development, 82, 2067-2082.
Witherington, D. C. & Margett, T. E. (2011). How conceptually unified is the dynamic systems approach to the study of psychological development? Child Development Perspectives, 5, 286-290.
Witherington, D. C., Campos, J. J., Harriger, J. A., Bryan, C., & Margett, T. E. (2010). Emotion and its development in infancy. In G. Bremner and T. D. Wachs (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell handbook of infant development, Vol. 1, Basic Research, 2nd Edition (pp. 568-591). Cambridge: Blackwell.