Dr. Kathleen Arnold (she/her) is an Assistant Professor at Radford University, near Blacksburg, Virginia. She specializes in research on individual differences across students, memory for personal events (autobiographical memory), and using writing-to-learn as a strategy to improve learning. She earned her Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis in 2012.

She began her research career examining prospective memory, which is remembering to do something in the future, like picking up milk on your way home (probably the type of memory that people complain the most about not being good at). Currently, her research focuses on what happens when you try retrieval practice, but you can't remember something. It turns out that just doing the practice is helpful. So, trying to retrieve something and failing, but then getting the answer, actually helps you learn it better. She was featured in Radford University’s News in 2022.

Key finding from Dr. Arnold’s research: Writing that engaged retrieval practice (essay writing and free recall) led to better final test performance than note taking and highlighting.

Arnold, K. M., Umanath, S., Thio, K., Reilly, W. B., McDaniel, M. A., & Marsh, E. J. (2017). Understanding the cognitive processes involved in writing to learn. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 23(2), 115.