Richard E. Mayer, PhD, is recognized with this APA Citizen Psychologist Presidential Citation for his leadership and longstanding impact on early and elementary education in the Goleta Union School District in California.
Mayer was first elected as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Goleta Union School District in 1981, and is currently in his ninth term, making him the longest-serving school board member in his county. Mayer served as president, vice president and clerk of the board on multiple occasions, as well as the board's representative on every district committee over the years. He currently serves as the board's vice president.
The Goleta Union School District serves approximately 3,500 students and operates nine elementary schools and three preschools in the Goleta Valley, a suburban community of in southern California. As a board member, Mayer is credited with being involved in maintaining low class size (e.g., 20-to-1 in primary grades) to allow for differentiated instruction for all students; creating preschools for children from low-income families and for students with special needs to insure students enter kindergarten ready to learn; developing academic summer programs for students from low-income families who need academic help to avoid summertime losses in achievement; and adding afterschool programs and childcare to serve families who need a safe afterschool environment for their children. In addition, he is credited with insuring that the district offers psychological and social services to promote social-emotional learning; providing additional instructional support in schools that are most in need to reduce the achievement gap; providing all students with access to instructional technology that is tied to District curriculum; providing professional development for employees based on treating teachers as professionals and partners; developing evaluation programs based on tracking individual student growth; and maintaining rich instructional programs in art, music, science, language arts and math, focused on student understanding and development of learning skills.
Mayer also serves his Santa Barbara, California community in other roles such as co-president and vice president for Education for Congregation B’nai Brith; as a member of the Educational Resources Guide for K-12 Schools Academic Outreach Program at University of California, Santa Barbara; and as a member of the Advisory Committee on Instructional Design and Learning Outcomes, California Postsecondary Education Commission, State of California.
Mayer is an educational psychologist who has made significant contributions to theories of cognition and learning, especially as they relate to problem solving and the design of educational multimedia. His best known contribution to the field of educational psychology is multimedia learning theory, which posits that optimal learning occurs when visual and verbal materials are presented together simultaneously. He is the year 2000 recipient of the E. L. Thorndike Award for career achievement in educational psychology, and the winner of 2008 Distinguished Contribution of Applications of Psychology to Education and Training Award from the APA. He was ranked #1 as the most productive educational psychologist in the world for 1997-2001 and is the author of more than 500 publications including 30 books on education and multimedia. He received a PhD in psychology from the University of Michigan (1973) and is currently a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) where he has served since 1975.