Faculty Directory
Gabe Avakian Orona
Assistant Professor
Gabe Avakian Orona
Ph.D.
Contact
Telephone: 617-552-2261
Email: gabriel.orona@bc.edu
Education
- Ph.D., University of California, Irvine
- M.P.H., California State University, Fullerton
- B.S., California State University Fullerton
Courses
Psychometrics I: Classical Test Theory and Rasch Models
Research Interests
Epistemic Cognition, Virtue; Judgement and Decision-Making; Reasoning; Measurement; Bayesian Statistics
Expertise
- Cognitive and Social Development
- Formative and Whole Person Education
- Research Methods, Evaluation & Psychometrics
Department
Profile
Gabe Avakian Orona is an Assistant Professor of Applied Developmental and Educational Psychology in the Lynch School of Education and Human Development at 糖心Vlog. His research examines the cognitive and affective mechanisms underlying thinking and reasoning. He focuses particularly on how educational experiences shape epistemic cognition鈥攖he set of mental processes by which individuals construct, evaluate, and revise beliefs about knowledge, truth, justification, and evidence. Drawing on perspectives from educational and cognitive psychology, he investigates how learners reason under conditions of uncertainty and how educational environments support the development of intellectual virtues鈥攖he cognitive traits and critical thinking skills needed to override bias, reason effectively, and form accurate beliefs. His research employs experimental, longitudinal, and intervention-based designs to study these questions. His methodological interests include Bayesian multilevel modeling, measurement theory, and quantitative approaches to modeling cognitive processes.
Dr. Orona serves as Principal Investigator or Co-Principal Investigator on several current grant-funded projects, including:
- A large-scale study of the role of educational experiences in shaping epistemic dispositions and open-minded civic engagement (Arthur Vining Davis Foundations);
- A project examining how to cultivate and characterize intellectually virtuous engagement with AI (John Templeton Foundation);
- An intervention study on epistemic virtue and the development of curiosity (University of T眉bingen).
Honors & Awards
2025听
Arthur Vining Davis Foundations/ACLS Fellowships for Research on the Liberal Arts, Examining the Impact of Public Liberal Arts Education on Cultivating Civic and Democratic Citizenship: Causes and Results, $45,000听
2024听
Cultivating Intellectual Character in the AI Age, $470,442听
2024听
Visiting Scholar, State-to-State Program Baden-W眉rttemberg/North Carolina 鈥揊aculty Mobility Program, Ministry of Science, Research and Arts of Baden-W眉rttemberg. 1,200 euro.听
2021听
Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE) Scholar, $8,000 Funding provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.听
Project: Aligning skills, competency frameworks, and learning outcomes听
2021听
David P. Gardner Research Seminar Fellowship on Higher Education, Center for Studies in Higher Education, University of California, Berkeley听
2020听
Educational Testing Service (ETS) Intern, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
Grants & Fellowships
2025,听Arthur Vining Davis Foundations/ACLS Fellowships for Research on the Liberal Arts, Examining the Impact of Public Liberal Arts Education on Cultivating Civic and Democratic Citizenship: Causes and Results, $45,000听
2024,听Cultivating Intellectual Character in the AI Age, $470,442听
2024,听Visiting Scholar, State-to-State Program Baden-W眉rttemberg/North Carolina 鈥揊aculty Mobility Program, Ministry of Science, Research and Arts of Baden-W眉rttemberg. 1,200 euro.听
听
Select Publications
Orona, G. A. (2026). The adaptive function of analytic thinking styles: Balancing effort and accuracy in meta-reasoning. Cognition, 275, 106618. 10.1016/j.cognition.2026.106618听听
Orona, G. A., & Greene, J. A. (2026). A theoretical model for stimulating epistemic growth in learners. Educational Psychologist, 1鈥�22. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2026.2689595
Orona, G. A., Eccles, J. S., Solanki, S., Copp, D. A., Dang, Q. V., & Arum, R. (2025). The structure of adult thinking: A network approach to (meta) cognitive processing. Learning and Individual Differences, 117, 102584. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2024.102584
Orona, G. A., & Trautwein, U. (2024). Thinking disposition education improves cognitive reflection: Experimental results from an intervention study. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 101569. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2024.101569
Orona, G. A., Eccles, J. S., Zitzmann, S., Fischer, C., & Arum, R. (2023). Cognitive development in undergraduate emerging adults: How course-taking breadth supports skill formation. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 74, 102206. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2023.102206