Presented by Derek Briggs at the Oxford University Centre for Educational Assessment on May 24, 2018. 

The statistician John Tukey once wrote “Far better an approximate answer to the right question, which is often vague, than an exact answer to the wrong question, which can always be made precise.” Some prime examples of vague questions in education, for which only approximate answers are likely available: What are students learning? How much are they learning? Are they learning enough? These questions, which require considerable unpacking, stand in contrast to more precise questions that can be answered with greater confidence:  How reliable are the scores on this test? Is a test score high enough to infer mastery of the content domain? Is the score predictive of success on other related tests? These latter questions, while not wrong per se, represent the sorts of things that psychometricians think that people should care about, rather than the sorts of questions they actually care about. There is good reason to debate the appropriate role for psychometrics to play in contexts where there is a desire to make inferences about student growth.  In this talk, I use recent and ongoing research on learning progressions in mathematics and science to illustrate how measurement provides a valuable frame of reference in our attempts to answer questions about student learning. Yet I also emphasize the danger of overselling measurement as an outcome when theories of learning are nascent and scoreable items are in short supply.

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Presented by Derek Briggs at the Chautauqua Education Series on Mar. 18, 2015. 

There is considerable controversy over the use of standardized tests to assess academic progress of children with special needs. The very act of standardization appears to conflict with the tailoring of a student’s learning goals through an individualized education plan (IEP). Some also argue that the process of preparing students to take a standardized test takes away valuable time that could be spent on more authentic learning activities. Professor Derek Briggs discusses the pros and cons of standardized testing for children with special needs. He also explores the features of the newly designed large-scale assessments that all Colorado students will be taking in the spring of 2015 and discuss how these features may address frequently raised concerns about standardized testing.

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Presented by Derek Briggs at the University of Michigan on Feb. 19, 2013. 

This lectureship is made possible by a generous endowment from Dr. Frank B. Womer, who served the School of Education as a professor of educational measurement for 30 years. Dr. Womer was staff director of the National Assessment for Educational Progress when it launched the first nationwide effort to assess student achievement in basic subjects. He also founded the annual Michigan School Testing Conference which continues to this day under the sponsorship of the School of Education. His gift reflects his abiding commitment to the School of Education and its role in improving the quality of education in a democratic society. 

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