[1][2] She earned a PhD in psychology from the University of California, San Diego, in 1982, supervised by Donald Norman.
[1][2][3] After completing her PhD, Miyake returned to Japan and obtained a position at Aoyama Gakuin Women's Junior College, where she stayed for seven years.
[2][3] Miyake was a founding member of the International Society of the Learning Sciences, and served a term as its president.
[6][7] She coined the phrase “constructive interaction” for the ways in which the partners worked together to reach a deeper understanding of the problem.
[6][7] She continued to study collaborative learning throughout her research career, examining subjects across the lifespan (from early childhood to adulthood) and combining interests in education, psychology, and engineering.