Sharon L. Nichols PhD

Sharon L. Nichols is an assistant professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She received a bachelor's in psychology from Bucknell University and her master's and doctorate in educational psychology from the University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ. Her doctoral studies focused on adolescent motivation in middle school contexts.

Dr. Nichols received a postdoctoral fellowship from the Educational Policy Studies Laboratory at the Arizona State University to engage in research on high-stakes testing. There she was instrumental in producing technical reports on the impact of high-stakes testing on teachers, students, and schools. Her current work focuses on how high-stakes testing pressure affects novice and veteran teachers.

Dr. Nichols has authored over a dozen publications related to youth development, youth policy and motivation. She is co-author (with Thomas L. Good) of the book, America's teenagers-myths and realities: Media images, schooling, and the social costs of careless indifference. This book was published by Erlbaum in 2004. Nichols is a consulting editor for the Journal of Experimental Education and for the last 3 years has served as chair (and co-chair) of the Adolescence Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association.