The Learning Sciences and Psychological Studies (LSPS) PhD program draws upon the relatively new field of learning sciences that has emerged to address the increasingly inter- and multidisciplinary nature of work within and beyond the academy. Program faculty represent a diverse set of academic backgrounds and fields (e.g., critical theory, educational psychology, psychometrics, school psychology, socio-cultural studies, mathematics and science education, technology studies, statistics). LSPS focuses on learning, a cognitive, social, and cultural activity that is distributed among the participating actors as individuals and groups within a specific context. The strand examines formal and informal learning within and across multiple contexts (e.g., teaching and learning in classrooms, centers, communities, homes, museums, schools, virtual environments) from multiple perspectives (e.g., critical, disciplinary, design-based, post-positivist, post-structuralist, and structuralist). The rigorous study of formal and informal learning utilizes multiple paradigms and employs quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods approaches most appropriate for the questions investigated. The examination of formal and informal learning seeks to understand how people learn and how this learning is influenced by knowledge, networks, social and societal structures, tools (e.g., technology), and an array of socio-cultural factors. The goals of this examination of learning is to produce theory, generate research, inform policy, and develop practice that lead to the construction and design of environments that facilitate optimal opportunity, and access for and development of all participants, within the contexts in which formal and informal learning occurs.