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Fairness and Accessibility: Challenges and Solutions in Scoring

PRESENTATION FROM:

Research Meeting:  Fairness in Educational and Psychological Tests: Issues and Solutions
October 12-13, 2017

Hosted by the Buros Center for Testing with conference grant funding from American Educational Research Association (AERA)
      
LENGTH: 17 minutes

PRESENTER BIOGRAPHY: 

Cara Cahalan Laitusis, PhD. is the Senior Research Director of the Student and Teacher Research Center at Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey.  Dr. Laitusis currently directs ETS research efforts in support of teacher licensure and K12 accountability assessments.   Since coming to ETS in 1998, Dr. Laitusis has been involved in research on the validity and fairness of assessments for all test takers.  These projects included field testing of new item types and test designs for students with disabilities on state assessments and admissions tests, using assistive technologies to increase accessibility on computer-based assessments, examining the validity of testing accommodations for students with disabilities on a variety of tests, investigating gender differences in mathematical problem solving, and examining the comparability of paper-based and computer-based test formats between gender and ethnic groups.  Dr. Laitusis has been awarded several grants from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES) and authored numerous research articles and was editor of the book “Large Scale Assessment and Accommodations: What Works?” which was published by the Council for Exceptional Children.  Her work has informed major testing programs in the United States including the SAT, GRE, NAEP, PARCC, Smarter Balanced, and ELPA21.   

Before coming to ETS, Dr. Laitusis was a school psychologist where she worked with a diverse student population ranging from pre-kindergarten to high school.  Her applied specializations are in curriculum-based measurement and the diagnosis and treatment of students with learning disabilities.  She received a Ph.D. in School Psychology from Fordham University and was the 2008 recipient of the Promising Measurement Scholar Award from the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME).
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TITLE: Fairness and Accessibility: Challenges and Solutions in Scoring LENGTH: 17 minutes BIO: Cara Cahalan Laitusis, PhD. is the Senior Research Director of the Student and Teacher Research Center at Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey. Dr. Laitusis currently directs ETS research efforts in support of teacher licensure and K12 accountability assessments. Since coming to ETS in 1998, Dr. Laitusis has been involved in research on the validity and fairness of assessments for all test takers. These projects included field testing of new item types and test designs for students with disabilities on state assessments and admissions tests, using assistive technologies to increase accessibility on computer-based assessments, examining the validity of testing accommodations for students with disabilities on a variety of tests, investigating gender differences in mathematical problem solving, and examining the comparability of paper-based and computer-based test formats between gender and ethnic groups. Dr. Laitusis has been awarded several grants from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES) and authored numerous research articles and was editor of the book “Large Scale Assessment and Accommodations: What Works?” which was published by the Council for Exceptional Children. Her work has informed major testing programs in the United States including the SAT, GRE, NAEP, PARCC, Smarter Balanced, and ELPA21. Before coming to ETS, Dr. Laitusis was a school psychologist where she worked with a diverse student population ranging from pre-kindergarten to high school. Her applied specializations are in curriculum-based measurement and the diagnosis and treatment of students with learning disabilities. She received a Ph.D. in School Psychology from Fordham University and was the 2008 recipient of the Promising Measurement Scholar Award from the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME).