Marjolein Verhoeven (1980) received her PhD in 2007 at the University of Amsterdam. In 2009 she was appointed as Assistant Professor at Utrecht University at the department of Clinical Child and Family Studies (CCFS) and as a member of Child and Adolescent Studies (CAS).  

Research

Marjolein Verhoeven is engaged in research on the development and parenting of young children (0-6 years). Questions with which she is concerned are: how do parents raise their young child in the Netherlands? Why do parents parent the way they do? How does parental behavior develop and what factors are driving this? Is this the same for fathers and mothers? And for example, foster parents or parents of prematurely born children? She is also concerned with the measurement of parenting and developed a comprehensive parenting questionnaire and observation schemes to code parent-child interaction. Marjolein is also involved in research on screening- and diagnostic instruments regarding early child development, with a special focus on the development of moderately prematire born children.

Teaching

Marjolein is involved in the education and training of Bachelor, Master, and PhD students. She is involved in developing the curriculum of the Bachelor of Pedagogical Sciences and coordinates two central courses in the Master Clinical Child, Family, and Educational Studies (CCFES): 'Academic Professional' and the 'Master Thesis'. She is a member of the Program Advisory Committee (PAC) and the Educational Committee for the Academic Master's Programmes. She supervised many Master- and Bachelor thesis students and co-supervised 2 PhD-students. Currently, she co-supervises 1 PhD-student.  

Societal Impact

Marjolein feels it is important that the knowledge gained from research is shared and implemented by professionals and policy makers. T0 accomplish this, she collaborated with 'The Rading' in setting up a study concerning the monitoring of foster children. She is currently involved in a pilot study regarding the effectiveness of a parent-based intervention program 'Samen Leren' developed by the institution 'Bureau Frontlijn' to improve school-outcomes in a highly risk population.

Expertise

Parenting, parental cognitions, personality, mothers, fathers, parent-child relationship, early child development, child temperament, family as a system, measurement instruments.