This will be my final column for The Score as Div. 5’s president, and I’d like to express my deepest appreciation to the Div. 5 committees and all the volunteers that helped to make the year successful. A major accomplishment this year was the Div. 5 mini-conference. In what is now a three-year tradition, the annual mid-year meeting of the Div. 5 Executive Committee includes a mini-conference devoted to topics in quantitative and qualitative methods. In 2016, then-President Scott Hofer hosted the first mini-conference at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada; while in 2017, then-President Joe Rodgers hosted a one-day mini-conference at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, “Teaching Statistics and Quantitative Methods into the 21st Century.”
On Friday, March 23, 2018, President Amy Schmidt held a one-day mini-conference at the Educational Testing Service (ETS) campus in Princeton, NJ, “Educational and Psychological Measurement: Past, Present and Future.” Funding for travel by presenters, conference food and IT support was obtained from ETS and from Multi-Health Systems, Inc. (MHS).
A listing of the presenters and their presentations appears at the end of this article.
Another major accomplishment was spearheaded by Eric Youngstrom, our Section Representative for Assessment, who worked with Divs. 53 (lead division), 2, 12, and the Evidence-Based Principles of Treatment (EBP) Clearinghouse to put together a successful Interdivisional Grant Proposal titled: “Helping Give Away Psychological Science: Using Wikiversity to Build Resources for Teaching and Implementing Evidence-Based Assessment and Treatment.” The group has learned how to make effective edits on Wikipedia, building pages about the best free evidence-based assessments (EBA), linking them to curated sites run by Divs. 53 and 12. Div. 5 involvement consists of the provision of content experts to review and improve the EBA pages with the Wikiversity editing teams. Interested in hearing more, or in getting involved? Contact Eric via email.
One initiative that I did not make much progress in is the initiative to establish among the members of Div. 5 a kind of intellectual genealogy. As historian of Div. 5, I hope to pick up on this project as I cede the gavel to our president-elect in August. I know I leave the division in great hands with President-elect David McKinnon. I look forward to working with Dave in my upcoming role as immediate past president.
And finally, don’t forget to join us at the various Div. 5 sessions at APA’s upcoming Annual Convention in San Francisco! If you enjoy walking or running, please join the Div. 5 team on Saturday morning, Aug. 11, for Ray’s Race. Hope to see you all there!
All the best,
Amy Schmidt
Presentations from APA Div. 5’s Conference on Educational and Psychological Measurement: Past, Present and Future
Videos of the following presentations can be viewed on Div. 5’s YouTube channelopens in new window.
- “Welcome”
Amy Elizabeth Schmidt
General Manager, Psychometrics, Analysis & Research, ETS
Current President, APA Div. 5 - “Educational Assessment: What to Watch in a Rapidly Changing World”
Randy E. Bennett
Norman O. Frederiksen Chair in Assessment Innovation, ETS
Current President, NCME and IAEA
(NOTE: Randy Bennett’s presentation was not recorded at the Div. 5 mini-conference but was recorded at NCME as part of Bennett’s presidential addressopens in new window.) - “Validity Theory, Past and Present”
Michael Kane
Messick Chair in Test Validity, ETS - “Relating Scores, Aligning Score Distributions”
Neil Dorans
Distinguished Presidential Appointee, ETS - “Test Adaptation: Methods and Pitfalls”
Kurt Geisinger
Director, Buros Center for Testing;
W.C. Meierhenry Distinguished Professor University of Nebraska - “The Changing Significance of the Ordinary Item”
Mark Reckase
University Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology and Special Education, Michigan State University - “Mixed Methods Scale Development: Combining the Strengths of Qualitative and Quantitative Methods to Measure Covert Internal Experiences”
Heidi Levitt
Professor of Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Boston - “Exploration and Measurement in an Ethnographic Study of Interdisciplinary Science”
Lisa Osbeck
Professor of Psychology, University of West Georgia - “Psychological Assessment: Musings on Its Past, Present, and Future”
Susana Urbina
Emeritus Professor of Psychology, University of North Florida - “Psychological and Educational Measurement: Whither Are We bound?”
Amy Elizabeth Schmidt
General Manager, Psychometrics, Analysis & Research, ETS
Current President, APA Div. 5 - “Measurement Considerations for Personalized Learning and Assessment Systems”
Alina A. von Davier
Senior Vice President, ACTNEXT
Adjunct Professor, Fordham University