Education

1992 University of Illinois, B.S.
1994 Carnegie Mellon University, M.S.
1996 Carnegie Mellon University, Ph.D.

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Courses Taught

The Cognition of Game Playing
Sensation and Perception
Thinking

Career Specialties

Stephen Blessing examines how cognitive psychology can be applied to everyday life. Past research in this area has included intelligent tutoring systems, teaching psychology, museum exhibits and game playing.

Professional and Community Activities

Blessing has been published widely over the years, often involving student researchers. Recent work has included a chapter in an edited book on Artificial Intelligence in Education, work conducted at the Glazer Children’s Museum and a project examining how game players make decisions based on the content of the game.

The publications below are representative of such work. Student researchers are in bold. 

Barakat, K., Carrilo, A., Ropel, D., Blessing, S., & Skowronek, J. (February 2016). Not in Kansas anymore: Effects from a special traveling children’s museum exhibit. Poster presented at the 6th Florida Undergraduate Research Conference (FURC), Tampa, FL.

Blessing, S.B., Fleck, B., & Hussey, H.D. (2018). A survey of effective blogging practices. In R. J. Harnish, K. R. Bridges, D. N. Sattler, M. L. Signorella, & M. Munson (Eds.). The Use of Technology in Teaching and Learning. Retrieved from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology website: http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/

Blessing, S.B., Gilbert, S.B., & Ritter, S (2023). Authoring tools to build AIED systems. In B. du Boulay, T. Mitrovic, & K. Yacef (Eds.) Handbook of Artificial Intelligence in Education (pp. 273-285). Edward Elgar Publishing.

Rodriguez, A. & Blessing, S. (February 2022). Do face masks affect our ability to perceive speech in normal or noisy conditions? Poster presented at the Florida Undergraduate Research Conference (FURC) 2022, Orlando, FL.

Sakosky, E., Blessing, S., & Engelstein, G. (February, 2019). Fighting fire v. hunting treasure: Examining how context affects decision making. Poster presented at the 9th Florida Undergraduate Research Conference (FURC), Tampa, FL.

Honors and Awards

Richard Piper Award for Outstanding Service to the College of Social Science, Mathematics, and Education
Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Research, College of Social Science, Mathematics, and Education
Excellence in Academic Advising award