Amy Rouse

Dr. Gillespie Rouse’s research focuses on writing development and instruction. Her approach to understanding writing and how to best prepare teachers to provide writing instruction has been multifaceted. She has conducted meta-analyses and systematic reviews to examine effective writing interventions for struggling writers and students with disabilities, analysed interview responses to understand students’ knowledge of the writing process and different writing genres, conducted surveys to document teachers’ use of evidence-based writing instruction, and provided professional development to assist teachers in implementing evidence-based writing instruction in their classrooms. She has also developed interventions to support primary students’ use of writing as a tool for learning in math and science. Most recently, Dr. Gillespie Rouse and her colleagues have used mixed-reality simulations to support primary pre-service teachers’ development of effective writing instruction and pedagogy.

In addition to research, Dr. Gillespie Rouse teaches courses focused on primary literacy. Prior to UQ, Dr. Gillespie Rouse was an associate professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas (USA). She earned her doctorate in Special Education, with a focus in Quantitative Methods, from Vanderbilt University, where she was an Institute of Education Sciences predoctoral fellow. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Master of Teaching in Special Education from the University of Virginia. Prior to her time in academia, Dr. Rouse was a primary special education teacher in the United States.

Her work has been published in various journals including Educational Research Review, Frontiers in Psychology, Journal of Educational Psychology, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, and Exceptional Children. In 2020, her publication earned recognition by the National Science Teachers’ Association (USA) for being “Worth-Reading Research for Practitioners”. In 2018, one of her publications was Wiley’s top-20 most downloaded article of the year in Learning Disabilities Research and Practice.

Dr. Gillespie Rouse serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of Learning Disabilities and sits on editorial boards for Exceptionality, the Journal of Educational Psychology, and Teaching Exceptional Children.