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PSYCHOLOGICAL & QUANTITATIVE FOUNDATION
Dunbar Named to National Academy
Professor Stephen Dunbar |
Professor Stephen B. Dunbar has been named to the National Academy of Sciences’ Board on Testing and Assessment (BOTA).
BOTA, organized in 1993 and part of the National Research Council, addresses a wide range of issues concerning the science and policy of testing and assessment in education, employment, and the military.
Building on a strong foundation of research in the behavioral and social sciences, the board tracks developments and innovations and keep policy makers, educators, and employers apprised of evolving technological and policy issues.
Among the issues analyzed by BOTA are the link between academic and school-based learning and workplace competencies; the role of assessment in standards-based reform of education; the effects of high-stakes testing on the validity of test-based inferences and on the behavior of individuals or organizations; development of professional testing standards and policies to ensure appropriate test use; and the uses of traditional and new forms of assessment as tools of program evaluation and accountability.
The board holds three regular meetings a year during which members, sponsoring agency staff, and guests discuss current issues in testing and assessment, and hear presentations by invited researchers and policy makers. In addition, the board offers workshops and conferences, sessions at professional meetings, research and policy papers and other services.
Dunbar, who teaches educational measurement and statistics and is a principal author of the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, has previously served as a consultant to some of BOTA’s committees, and he was a member of a committee that evaluated the National Assessment of Education Progress.
Kolen and Brennan Publish Test Equating Book
Educational Measurement and Statistics Professor Michael J. Kolen and E. F. Lindquist Chair in Measurement and Testing and Director of the Center for Advanced Studies in Measurement and Assessment Robert L. Brennan recently published a second edition of their book, Test Equating, Scaling, and Linking: Methods and Practices.
Test equating methods are used with many standardized tests in education and psychology to ensure that scores from multiple test forms can be used interchangeably.
Both authors are acknowledged experts on test equating, scaling, and linking, they have authored numerous publications on these subjects, and they have taught many workshops and courses on equating. Both authors have been president of the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME), and both received an NCME award for Outstanding Technical Contributions to Educational Measurement following publication of the first edition of this book. Professor Brennan received an NCME award for Career Contributions to Educational Measurement and authored Generalizability Theory.
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