Alana Unfried

Alana Unfried is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at California State University, Monterey Bay, with secondary affiliation in Psychology. Her research centers on developing and validating instruments to measure attitudes in statistics and data science education across students, instructors, and learning environments.

Her primary research areas include:

• Statistics and Data Science Education
• Educational Measurement and Psychometrics
• STEM Attitude Research
• Instrument Development for Educational Assessment

She has created influential tools like S-SOMAS (Student Survey of Motivational Attitudes toward Statistics) and S-SOMADS (for Data Science), addressing critical challenges in attitude measurement validity and reliability within quantitative disciplines.

Analysis of her 2019-2024 publications reveals a cohesive focus on instrument development for educational assessment in statistics and data science. Her work establishes comprehensive measurement frameworks covering student/instructor attitudes, classroom environments, and curriculum evaluation. Key contributions include cross-disciplinary data science curriculum reviews, departmental change assessment models, and solutions for persistent measurement challenges like context-specific validity and reliability.