Matt Scheel, Carroll University faculty

Dr. Matthew Scheel

Associate Professor of Psychology Get Contact Info

TEACHES IN THE FOLLOWING PROGRAM(S)

Psychology Animal Behavior Department of Life Sciences

Biography

Dr. Scheel grew up in the Milwaukee suburb of Greendale. He earned his bachelor's degree in psychology from Winona State University, his master's degree in clinical psychology from Minnesota State University-Mankato, and his doctorate in experimental psychology from the University of Nevada. He joined Carroll's faculty in 2007, and has served as the department chair since 2015. Dr. Scheel teaches Learning and Animal Behavior; Historical and Modern Viewpoints in Psychology; Research Seminar; and Research Methods in Behavior Analysis. He is a member of the Association for Psychological Science, the Wisconsin Association for Behavior Analysis, the Society for the Teaching of Psychology, and the Animal Behavior Society.

Education

  • University of Nevada, PhD
  • Minnesota State University-Mankato, MA
  • Winona State University, BA

Areas of Specialization

Decision making, research methods in comparative psychology and conditioning.

Scholarly and Professional Achievements

Papers Presented (Carroll undergraduate collaborators in bold)

Scheel, M.H., Fabry, B., Forness, K., Staab, L., & Vandenbush, E. (2016, May). Sugar ingestion may reduce mind-wandering during a reading comprehension task. Poster presented at the 28th Annual Meeting of the Association for Psychological Science, Chicago, Illinois.

Strader, K., Dams, G., & Scheel, M. (2016, May). Matching, maximizing, and misunderstanding. Poster presented at the 28th Annual Meeting of the Association for Psychological Science, Chicago, Illinois.

Strader, K.D., Lauby, S., Scheel, M. (2015, August). Sugar amplifies nose-poking during tone that precedes water despite an omission contingency. Poster presented at the 8th Annual Meeting of the Wisconsin Association for Behavior Analysis, Madison, Wisconsin. Winner best poster; $100 prize.

Lauby, S.C., & Scheel, M.H., (2015, June). The sweet taste of success: A demonstration of the effects of sucrose in an omission contingency. Poster presented at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Animal Behavior Society, Anchorage, Alaska.

Watry, K., Lauby, S., Navins, K., & Scheel, M.H. (2014, August). A barycentric matching model describes rat responding in two- and four-choice probability learning procedures. Poster presented at the 7th Annual Meeting of the Wisconsin Association for Behavior Analysis, Madison, Wisconsin.

Strader, K., & Scheel, M.H. (2013, August). Intervention versus observation: Response competition in rats. Poster presented at the 6th Annual Meeting of the Wisconsin Association for Behavior Analysis, Madison, Wisconsin.

Zajdel, V., & Scheel, M.H. (2013, August). A Sprague-Dawley rat can discriminate between jazz and rap music styles. Poster presented at the 6th Annual Meeting of the Wisconsin Association for Behavior Analysis, Madison, Wisconsin.

De Oliveira, K., Beck, B., Scheel, M.H., & Hopp, J. (2012, November). Integration of cultural components into physician assistant programs. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Physician's Assistant Education Association, Seattle, Washington.

Navins, K., & Scheel, M.H. (2012, November). Choice strategies in two-choice probability learning. Poster presented at the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Scheel, M.H., & Hillmer, R.E. (2011, November). Multiple-choice probability-learning in rats. Poster presented at the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, Seattle, Washington.

McMahon, A.J., & Scheel, M.H. (2010, November). Glucose promotes controlled processing: Matching, maximizing and root beer. Poster presented at the 31st Annual Meeting of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, St. Louis, Missouri.

Scheel, M.H., O'Brien, K., Puskar, B., Haberkost, R., & Martin, S. (2009, August). Multiple-choices encourage optimal responding by rats in a noncontingent probability-learning procedure. Poster presented at the 2nd Annual Meeting of the Wisconsin Association for Behavior Analysis, Madison, Wisconsin.

Scheel, M.H., & Edwards, D. (2009, May). Captive black-handed spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) gesture to solicit allo-grooming. Poster presented at the 21st Annual Meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, Fullerton, California.

Scheel, M., & Hanson, R. (2008, May). Sex differences in perseveration of set. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Psychological Science, Chicago, Illinois

Publications (Carroll undergraduate collaborators in bold)

Shaw, H.L., Scheel, M.H., & Gardner, R.A. (In press). Tomasello turns back the clock in A natural history of human thinking (2014). American Journal of Psychology.

Scheel, M.H., Shaw, H.L., & Gardner, R.A. (In press). Incomparable methods vitiate cross-species comparisons: A comment on Haun et al. (2014). Psychological Science.

Scheel, M.H., Shaw, H.L., & Gardner, R.A. (2015). More examples of chimpanzees teaching. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 38, 44. e62 doi:10.1017/S0140525X14000715

Beck, B., Scheel, M.H., De Oliveira, K., & Hopp, J. (2014). Cultural competency in a physician assistant curriculum in the United States: a longitudinal study with two cohorts. Journal of Educational Evaluation for Health Professions, 11(2). 

Bahrke, B., De Oliveira, K., Scheel, M.H., Beck, B., & Hopp, J. (2014). Longitudinal integration of cultural components into a physician assistant program’s clinical year may improve cultural competency. Journal of Physician Assistant Education, 25(1), 33-37.

Scheel, M.H. & Ambrose, A.L. (2014). Sugar ingestion and dichotic listening: Increased perceptual capacity is more than motivation. Advances in Cognitive Psychology, 10(1), 26-31.

Scheel, M.H., Roscoe, B.H., Schaewe, V.G., & Yarbrough, C.S. (2014). Attitudes towards Muslims are more favorable on a survey than on an implicit relational assessment procedure (IRAP). Current Research in Social Psychology, 22(3), 22-32

Beck, B., Scheel, M.H., De Oliveira, K., & Hopp, J. (2013). Integrating cultural competency throughout a first-year PA curriculum steadily improves cultural awareness. Journal of Physician Assistant Education, 24(2), 28-31.

Scheel, M.H., & Edwards, D. (2012). Captive spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) arm-raise to solicit allo-grooming. Behavioural Processes, 89(3), 311-313.

Scheel, M.H., Fischer, L.A., McMahon, A.J., Mena, M.M., & Wolf, J.E. (2012). The implicit relational assessment procedure (IRAP) as a measure of women’s stereotypes about gay men. Current Research in Social Psychology, 18(2), 11-23.

Gardner, R.A., Scheel, M.H., & Shaw, H.S. (2011). Pygmalion in the laboratory. American Journal of Psychology. 124(4), 455-461.

Scheel, M.H. (2010). Resource depletion promotes automatic processing: Implications for distribution of practice. Psychological Reports, 107(3), 860-872.

McMahon, A.J., & Scheel, M.H. (2010). Glucose promotes controlled processing: Matching, maximizing, and root beer. Judgment and Decision Making, 5(6), 450-457.

Simpson, D., & Scheel, M. (2008). Whatever happened to baby Nim? [Review of the book Nim Chimpsky: The chimp who would be human]. PsycCRITIQUES-Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books, 53(38).

Service to Carroll University and Profession

Institutional Service

  • Chair, Life Sciences Department, 2015-Present
  • Member of the Carroll University Academic Quality Committee, 2016-Present
  • Chair of the Carroll University Academic Quality Committee, 2014-16
  • Member of the Carroll University Program Curriculum and Assessment Committee, 2013-14
  • Chair of the Carroll University Program Curriculum and Assessment Committee, 2012-13
  • Faculty adviser to the Carroll University chapter of Best Buddies, 2011-15
  • Project Evaluator, Primary Care Physician Assistant Training Project, Carroll University, 2010-16
  • Faculty adviser to the Carroll Students for Animal Welfare, 2010-Present
  • Member of the Carroll University Assessment Committee, 2008-12

Professional Service

  • Served as a reviewer of a manuscript for Psychological Science. May, 2016
  • Served as a reviewer of a manuscript for Psychological Reports. June, 2015.
  • Experimental representative to the Wisconsin Association for Behavior Analysis Executive Committee, 2014-Present

Honors and Awards

Honors

  • Member of Golden Key Honor Society (initiated 1995)
  • Member Psi-Chi the International Honor Society in Psychology (initiated 1995)

Awards

  • Collaboration with Carroll students Samantha Lauby and Kevin Stader earned Best Poster prize at the Annual Meeting of the Wisconsin Association for Behavior Analysis, 2015
  • Truckee Meadows Community College Certificate of Teaching Excellence, 2007

What is your teaching style?

My teaching style emphasizes student responsibility. I take the position that anyone smart enough to be in college should be capable of learning definitions and names out of an undergraduate textbook. So, I have students learn basic terminology by mastering chapter tests at their own pace. Instead of lecturing over a textbook, I use class time to discuss articles. Tests on concepts underlying the articles are in the form of essay exams. All of my classes also have writing assignments that require students to find and cite relevant peer-reviewed sources.

Why do you do what you do?

As an undergraduate, I was always bored reading about studies with outcomes that I would probably have predicted even if I never took a psychology course. So, my focus has been on what a layperson might consider counter-intuitive or irrational. I've found that students appreciate how understanding psychological principles allows them to reliably and accurately predict counter-intuitive behaviors in experiments. They'll tell me about how explaining their results to a friend or family member made them “feel smart”, because they are now able to accurately predict an outcome that most other people would fail to consider. Our mutual excitement has led to several successful collaborations – people work better when they enjoy what they do!

How do you make learning engaging?

I try to make material as real as I can. For example, I'll have students write proposals for a possible experiment as a term paper topic. So, a motivated student with a clever proposal could use their paper as a spring board for a real follow-up study. I also give students in my Research Methods in Behavior Analysis class and my Research Seminar class, opportunities to develop projects that could lead to conference presentations or papers in peer-reviewed journals.

What should students know about you?

I am an animal lover. Right now, my wife and I are down to two dogs and two pet rats at home. But over the years we've had cats, fish, birds, ferrets... you name it. I'm also sports fan. Having grown up in this area, I've followed the Brewers, Bucks, and Packers through good times and bad.

pano of main campus