Jacob Steiss, PhD
Assistant Professor, Literacy Education
516 Schindler Education Center
University of Northern Iowa
Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0607
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Jacob Steiss, PhD
Assistant Professor, Literacy Education
Describe an experience that reinforces why you enjoy what you do.
I like helping others feel more efficacious, either by recognizing their expertise or what they've done well, or trying something new and witnessing the positive impact. These are usually small moments where incremental progress is realized--like a kindergarten teacher saying "wow, his writing is so much better," or a third-grade teacher saying, "look at this exit ticket I made, isn't it awesome?"
What drove your interest in your selected discipline?
Because literacy is understanding language and ideas and communicating ideas to change the world or make an impact, I can't think of anything more important than literacy education!
What are your areas of expertise?
I've learned more about factor analysis, psychometrics, and biases in survey responses than I would have ever wanted to, though I wouldn't say I'm an expert. I probably know more about the following than the average person: disciplinary writing instruction, media literacy instruction, teacher collaborative inquiry, the Science of Learning, and integrating Critical Literacy into literacy instruction K-12
PhD, education, University of California, Irvine
MEd, University of Notre Dame
BA, English and sociology, Fordham University
Disciplinary writing instruction, media literacy instruction, teacher collaborative inquiry, the Science of Learning, and integrating critical literacy into literacy instruction K-12
Steiss, J., Bailey, D., Tate, T., & Graham. S. (2026) Item Orientation as a Confound in Epistemology Scales. AERA Open, 12(1), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584261457135
Steiss, J., Booth Olson, C., Graham. S., Baker, T., Kim, Y.-S. G., Tate, T., Krishnan, J., Chung, H., Collins, P., Gilbertston, N., Moon, Y., & Wang, J. (2026). The Effects of a Cognitive Strategies Intervention on Students’ Source-based Argument Writing in History. Reading and Writing, 39(3), 777-815. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-025-10678-0
Maamuujav, U. & Steiss, J. (2026). Academic Languaging and Historical Thinking | Cultivating Students' Language Skills for Argument Writing. University of Michigan Press.
Wang, J., Graham, S., Kim, Y.-S. G., & Steiss, J. (2025). Zooming into two measurement issues in writing self-efficacy: revision as a distinct dimension and the generality hypothesis in argumentative writing. Reading and Writing, 1-28. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-025-10679-z
Steiss, J., Wang, J., Kim, Y.-S. G., & Booth Olson, C. (2024). U.S. Secondary Students’ Source-Based Argument Writing in History. Written Communication, 41(4), 693-725. https://doi.org/10.1177/07410883241263549
Tate, T. P., Steiss, J., Bailey, D. H., Graham, S., Ritchie, D., Tseng, W., Moon, Y.S. & Warschauer, M. (2024). Can AI Provide Useful Holistic Essay Scoring?. Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence, 7, 100255. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeai.2024.100255
Steiss, J., Krishnan, J., & Wang, J. (2024). Designing Writing Prompts to Elicit Students’ Historical Thinking. The Social Studies, 115(6), 323–339. https://doi.org/10.1080/00377996.2024.2324926
Steiss, J., Tate, T., Graham, S., Cruz, J., Hebert, M., Wang, J., Moon, Y., Tseng, W., Warschauer, M., & Booth Olson, C. (2024). Examining the Capacity for AI to Provide Formative Feedback to Students’ Source-based Argument Writing. Learning and Instruction, 91, 101894. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2024.101894