Bio
I am based in the Research and Evaluation department at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City. Our work addresses how our audiences (e.g., students, teachers, visitors) experience the museum and what they learn in our programs and exhibitions. My expertise is in educational measurement, and I am interested in how we can measure scientific knowledge, practices, attitudes, and emotions to help us understand the impact of museum and other informal learning experiences. I began my career as a high school science teacher and my PhD is in Science Education (focus in Cognition, Assessment & Measurement) from the Stanford Graduate School of Education. My dissertation was about developing a measure of student’s competency with arguing from evidence in ecology. I am helpful with questions about human participant research (e.g., the IRB process), developing program evaluations, and developing research around formal and informal science learning.
Representative publications
Porter, T., Ballard, P.J., Valant, J., Newark, D., Baehr, J., Hoyle, R.H., Jayawickreme, E., MacPherson, A. and Smith, M. (2026). Developing intellectual humility in adolescence: Why it matters and how schools can help. Child Development Perspectives, aadag001.
Kirsch, D.G., MacPherson, A., Meyers, C.N., Bowser, S.L., & Kross, S.M. (2025). Ambassador animals do not have a clear effect on visitor conservation knowledge and attitudes toward exotic pets at a zoo exhibit. Zoo Biology, 44(1), 36-48.
MacPherson, A., Hammerness, K., & Gupta, P. (2019). Developing a set of guidelines for rigorous evaluations at a natural history museum. Journal of Museum Education, 44(3), 277-285.
MacPherson, A. (2016). A comparison of scientists’ arguments and school argumentation tasks. Science Education, 100(6), 1062-1091.
Hammerness, K., MacPherson, A., & Gupta, P. (2016). Developing a research agenda aimed at understanding the teaching and learning of science at a natural history museum. Curator: The Museum Journal, 59(4), 353-367.
Osborne, J. F., Henderson, J. B., MacPherson, A., Szu, E., Wild, A., & Yao, S. Y. (2016). The development and validation of a learning progression for argumentation in science. Journal of research in science teaching, 53(6), 821-846.
