News

April 2024

Jonson Receives Full Research Professor

The Buros Center congratulates Dr. Jessica L. Jonson. Dr. Jonson has been promoted to the rank of full Research Professor by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is also an Associate Director at the Buros Center for Testing, where she oversees our Assessment Literacy program.
 

March 2024

Buros Director Gives Presentation on Admission Testing

Buros director, Kurt Geisinger, provided a presentation at the annual meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association in Philadelphia. His presentation on March 2 was entitled, “What's up with higher education admission measures?” In this presentation, he discussed the reasons that there has been a curtailment in the use of admissions measures, the value of such measures, the concerns with such measures, the possible return of some institutions to the use of admissions tests, and the use of placement tests as a vehicle to help students advance through their collegiate process. Much of the presentation is based on issues discussed in his 2023 book entitled, “College admissions and admissions testing in a time of transformation” (Routledge, 2023). Geisinger is a fellow of the Eastern Psychological Association..
 

January 2024

Buros Center and UNL MAP Academy to Host AI-based Assessment Webinar

Buros Center for Testing and UNL MAP Academy will cohost an upcoming webinar, entitled, "AI-based Assessment: Promises, Progress, and Pitfalls" on Friday, March 1, 2024, at 11:00 a.m. CST. The goal of this webinar is to provide researchers and practitioners an opportunity to learn more about the advantages and disadvantages of using Artificial Intelligence assessment from five psychologists representing different fields of psychology. Continuing education credits are available (2.5 credit hours)

Buros Center Sponsors APA Breakfast

The Buros Center for Testing congratulates the graduate students who won poster awards at the 2023 American Psychological Association (APA) convention. Awardees were selected from three divisions of APA—Division 5: Quantitative and Qualitative Methods, Division 12: Society of Clinical Psychology, and Division 40: Society for Clinical Neuropsychology. Each student presented their poster at the 2023 APA Assessment Breakfast. The Buros Center was a proud sponsor of the breakfast.

September 2022

Webinar Panel on the Future of Teleassessment in October

“The Future of Teleassessment Across Psychological Fields: Moving Forward,” is the focus of a Buros Center webinar panel on Wednesday, October 26 at 11:30 a.m. CDT. The goal is to provide practitioners an opportunity to learn from four psychologists, Drs. A. Jordan Wright, Alison Pritchard, Ryan L. Farmer, and Tim Brearly, representing different fields of psychology. These individuals have conducted and reviewed research pertaining to teleassessment and will describe how it is likely to shape assessment practices moving forward. Two continuing education/continuing professional development credits are available. For additional information, visit https://buros.org/teleassessment-webinar-panel.
 

July 2022

Buros Center is an Approved Continuing Education Provider for New York State Psychologists

Buros Center for Testing is now recognized by the New York State Education Department as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists. The Buros Center offers live online and self-study professional development courses focused on improving testing, assessment, and measurement practices in psychology and education. Courses addressing ethics and the testing of diverse populations are available. To learn more, https://buros.org/professional-development
 

May 2022

AERA Releases Fairness in Testing Book Edited by Buros Center Leaders

The American Educational Research Association (AERA) recently released a groundbreaking volume, Fairness in Educational and Psychological Testing: Examining Theoretical, Research, Practice, and Policy Implications of the 2014 Standards. The book was edited by the Buros Center for Testing’s Jessica L. Jonson and Kurt F. Geisinger. The book examines scholarship, best-practice methodologies, and examples of policy and practice from various professional fields in education and psychology to illuminate the elevated emphasis on test fairness in the 2014 Standards. Fairness in Educational and Psychological Testing is available for purchase in paperback and e-book formats on the AERA website, https://lnkd.in/gfgYgQcQ
 

March 2022

Puchalla Joins Staff as Assistant Editor

We welcome Joel Puchalla as assistant editor with the Buros Center for Testing. Joel will be managing database contacts and timelines, offering customer support for Test Reviews Online, and proofreading. He will also be our point person for Mental Measurements Yearbook reviewers, guiding them through the review process.Before joining the Buros Center, Puchalla spent twelve years at University of Nebraska Press working in journal editorial and production. He holds MA and BA degrees in English from UNL. We look forward to working with him towards our mission of improving the science and practice of testing and assessment.
 

January 2022

MMY Reviews Play Key Role in Early Childhood Resarch at Penn

The Mental Measurements Yearbook database served as the basis for a systematic review of early childhood measures that examined the extent to which test developers report evidence of validity and reliability. The study was conducted by a research team at the Penn Child Research Center at the University of Pennsylvania and published in Early Childhood Research Quarterly. The authors note the “Mental Measurement [sic] Yearbook provides the most comprehensive and continuous examination of assessment developers’ development and validation practices” (p. 287), https://lnkd.in/eNPXie-q.

December 2020

Oliveri Joins Buros Leadership Team

The Buros Center for Testing welcomes Dr. Maria Elena Oliveri to our leadership team in the position of Research Associate Professor and Associate Director. In this position, she leads the Psychometric Consulting group in seeking new contracts and grants, administering contract- and grant-related activities, providing technical advice, conducting and disseminating research, and supervising the work of staff members in the unit. Before joining the Buros Center, Oliveri spent eight years at Educational Testing Service as a Research Scientist in the Career to Academic Readiness Research Center and six years with the Vancouver School Board as a Literacy Mentor and Resource Teacher. She has extensive experience in higher education and workforce research using quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methodologies, as well as evidence-based assessment design and implementation with attention to cross-cultural issues in assessment design and development.

Her research works have appeared in widely respected journals such as the International Journal of Testing, Applied Measurement in Education, and Journal of Writing Analytics. Oliveri holds five degrees from the University of British Columbia, including an M.A. and Ph.D. in Measurement, Evaluation, and Research Methodology, as well as an M.Ed. in Clinical Counseling Psychology and B.Ed. and B.A. degrees in Education/Second Language Learning and Psychology, respectively. Oliveri began her work for Buros part-time this fall and transitioned to full-time in December. We look forward to continuing to work together with her towards our mission of improving the science and practice of testing and assessment.
 

November 2020

Teaching Resources Available for the Mental Measurements Yearbook

Teaching resources are now available for faculty looking for ideas to teach measurement fundamentals and the identification and selection of high-quality tests and assessments. The Buros Center for Testing has seven brief video examples of undergraduate and graduate course assignments from various fields that use test reviews from The Mental Measurements Yearbook (MMY) series. Assignments can be used for remote or in-person instruction. View the videos about these assignments and how to use them in courses at https://buros.org/mmy-instructional-modules.
 

October 2020

Video Series: Controversies in College Admissions: Access, Honesty, Equity, Excellence

In late September, Kurt Geisinger, Director of the Buros Center for Testing, organized a virtual conference of nine nationally recognized speakers that presented thoughtful discussions surrounding admissions testing. The Controversies in College Admissions: Access, Honesty, Equity, Excellence virtual conference raised questions for college leaders to think about as they evaluate their admissions goals and practices in the current climate. The research-based presentations explored potential new models for college admissions, including supplementing test scores, increasing student diversity and incorporating noncognitive, socioeconomic, and environmental factors in the decision-making process. Recordings are available at https://go.unl.edu/9xbz.
 

April 2020

New Online SEL Assessment Guidebook Available

The Buros Center for Testing has a new, user-friendly technical guidebook for learning how to select technically sound assessments that contribute to valid interpretations of students’ social and emotional learning (SEL). This free online resource is especially useful for PreK-12 school psychologists and educators.The Spencer Foundation-funded project, led by Dr. Jessica Jonson, resulted in three guides that provide (a) steps and resources for identifying an SEL assessment, (b) questions to ask when evaluating the measurement quality of an SEL assessment, and (c) recommendations for appropriately using an SEL assessment once a high-quality measure has been identified.
 

January 2020

School Psychology Journal Publishes Buros Research

The January 2020 issue of School Psychology includes an article written by the Buros Center’s Janet F. Carlson (associate director and research professor), titled Context and Regulation of Homeschooling: Issues, Evidence, and Assessment Practices. It appears as the lead article in a special section on homeschooling featured in this issue of the journal.The work was inspired by Carlson’s work for Buros, especially in fielding queries from homeschooling parents seeking information about tests that may be used to demonstrate their homeschooler’s academic progress. Reference her work online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/spq0000335.

September 2018

Jonathan Weeks to Give Lecture on Multidimensional Testing

The Buros Center for Testing in collaboration with Educational Testing Service (ETS) is hosting the 12^th annual Buros/ETS lectures on Monday, October 29 at 2:15 p.m. The event is free and open to the public and will be held in Teachers College Hall, room 112, followed immediately by a reception in the Buros Library.The annual lecture series brings a distinguished research scientist from Educational Testing Service to the UNL campus to speak on current assessment and testing issues. This year, Dr. Jonathan Weeks will give a presentation titled "Issues in Multidimensional Test Linking.”Dr. Weeks will provide a foundation for understanding multidimensional test score linking and various issues that should be considered in this process, including value-added sub-scores, the number of common items, the linking design, and the choice of linking method. These issues will be discussed in the context of an empirical measure of foundational reading skills and the development of a multidimensional vertical scale.Jonathan Weeks is Associate Research Scientist of Global Assessment at Educational Testing Service (ETS). His work focuses on multiple forms of test linking, equating, and scaling. Dr. Weeks has been awarded several major grants, forging the way as lead psychometrician on an especially large project with the Institute of Education Sciences, Reading and Writing.  He is the creator of a popular R package (plink) for linking mixed-format tests using IRT-based methods.
 

August 2018

Geisinger Accepts National and International Leadership Positions

Dr. Kurt F. Geisinger, director of the Buros Center for Testing and professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, will serve in multiple leadership positions this year both nationally and internationally, in the field of educational assessment and evaluation.

• Geisinger will serve on the Appeals Council for the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP). CAEP was formed approximately eight years ago when two teacher education accrediting bodies combined. Geisinger was on the commission that brought them both together.
• Dr. Geisinger will also serve on the inaugural editorial board for the African Journal of Psychological Assessment (AJOPA). The request stems from a lecture on testing he presented in September 2017 at the first ever Pan African Council on Psychology.

In addition to the above positions, Geisinger will serve as president of three professional organizations over the next two years:

• President of Division 2: Psychological Assessment and Evaluation of the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP), Geisinger will serve on the board of directors and chair the governance committee for the association. Founded in 1920, IAAP is the oldest international association of psychologists and has more than 1,500 members from more than 80 countries.
• Geisinger is also president-elect of Division 5: Quantitative and Qualitative Methods of the American Psychological Association (APA) and will begin as president in 2019. The division promotes high standards in both research and practical applications of program evaluation, measurement, statistics, assessment and qualitative methods.
• He recently began a two-year term as president of the International Test Commission (ITC), an association of national psychological associations, test commissions, organizations, and individuals, that promotes “the proper development, evaluation, and uses” of educational and psychological tests.

“I believe that I’m in that stage in my career that giving back is important,” Geisinger said. “I’ve been fortunate to have many mentors along the way, so this is my time to help share with organizations that are meaningful in my life.”
 

March 2018

Fairness in Testing: Application and Practice Informed by Theory and Research Webinar Series
Starting in March 2018, Buros launched a six-part webinar series featuring scholars from educational measurement, school psychology, and clinical/counseling psychology who participated in the AERA fairness meeting. These speakers discuss some of the challenges in the educational and psychological assessment of individuals of varying cultural backgrounds, those with disabilities, and English language learners (ELLs). They also discuss how to select appropriate accommodations for educational tests, and what test users should expect from test developers when selecting assessments for potentially impacted individuals. Continuing education credit (APA CE/NASP CPD credit) is available with each webinar. The series will conclude fall 2018. http://buros.org/fairness-testing-webinar-series.

October 2016

Graduate Assistants Earn Awards

Buros Center graduate assistants Allen G. Garcia and Weldon Zane Smith, along with co-authors Dr. Susan M. Swearer, UNL Educational Psychology professor, and graduate student Zachary R. Myers presented an award-winning poster at the 2016 APA conference in Denver. The poster, Is There a Missing Link Between Bullying and School Engagement in LGBQQ Students?, was one of APA Division 16’s Student Blue Ribbon Walk winners. The poster’s authors examined data from more than 600 U.S. and international students in Grades 6-12 who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and questioning. The study found that perceived social support was the most important predictor for LGBQQ students’ school engagement and that school-based practitioners should promote social support as a way to reduce the effects victimization may have on students’ school engagement.

Buros Center graduate assistant Sara E. Gonzalez was recognized as one of five American Academy of School Psychology (AASP) scholarship winners at the 2016 APA conference. Scholarships were awarded to deserving doctoral students in school psychology in memory of leaders in the field who have contributed significantly to the association. The Memorial Fellows Fund Scholarship was originally referred to as the Hyman-Lambert Scholarship. The award recognizes the preeminent school psychology diplomates, Dr. Irwin Hyman and Dr. Nadine Lambert, who contributed significantly to AASP. Publishing companies that donated the funds to make the scholarships possible were Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, MHS Assessments, PAR, Taylor & Francis, and Western Psychological Association in memory of Dr. Thomas Oakland.
 

September 2016

Annual Buros/ETS Lecture

The Buros Center for Testing, in collaboration with Educational Testing Service, is hosting the 10th annual Buros/ETS lecture on Monday, September 12, 2016 at 2:15 p.m. The event is free and open to the public and will be held in Teachers College Hall, room 112, followed immediately by a reception in the Buros Library.

The annual lecture series brings a distinguished research scientist from Educational Testing Service to UNL to speak on current assessment and testing issues. This year, Dr. Patrick Kyllonen will give a presentation titled "Advances and Challenges in Assessing Social, Emotional, and Self-Management Skills.” Dr. Kyllonen will make the case for measuring character skills, then review limitations to current rating-scale assessment, particularly reference group effects, response style bias, and limitations in comparability across nations, schools, and demographic subgroups. Dr. Kyllonen will suggest a variety of solutions including forced-choice measurement, anchoring vignettes, situational judgment testing, and performance tasks, and further discuss measurement models for these assessments. He will conclude with a discussion of prospects and priorities for moving the science of character assessment forward.

Patrick Kyllonen is Senior Research Director of the Center for Academic and Workforce Readiness and Success at Educational Testing Service (ETS). His work focuses on non-cognitive assessment in K-12 and higher education, workforce readiness assessment, and international large scale assessment. He is the author of several books and National Academy of Sciences reports on these topics, is a fellow of APA and AERA, and was instrumental in the development of the Trait-Self Description (TSD) Personality Inventory.
 

July 2016

Q & A with Graduate Assistant HyeSun Lee

1. Tell us about your program here at UNL…
   I joined the Quantitative, Qualitative, and Psychometric Methods PhD program in the Department of Educational Psychology in 2011. I mostly conducted empirical and simulation studies about test fairness, test validity, propensity scores, and multilevel modeling based on topics introduced to me by Drs. Geisinger, De Ayala, and Bovaird. I feel my dissertation really integrated aspects of each course I took with them.
    
2. How long had you been a GA for Buros and what did your duties include?
   I have been a GA for five and a half years. My duties started with the work at the Psychometric Consulting unit where I worked on an auditing project for an international large-scale assessment. Then, I worked on The Nineteenth Mental Measurements Yearbook and Tests in Print IX in the Test Reviews and Information unit. I moved back to the Psychometric Consulting unit for audit projects for large-scale statewide assessments.
    
3. What was most memorable for you during your time with Buros?
   I enjoyed reading different test manuals for the Mental Measurements Yearbooks. While working on the MMY, I could really apply what I learned from my courses to real test development. Also, audit projects that I worked for were quite fun for the same reason but also because I could have opportunities to work with a variety of clients. In addition I have great memories spending time with everyone at Buros Christmas parties, ETS lectures and (especially) dinners, and even at the Buros conference booths. Buros will really stick in my memory due to all the clothes with its logo that I got as Christmas gifts.
    
4. What are your plans for the future?
   I will continue to conduct research on test fairness, test validity, and statistical methods. I hope my research can contribute to inform applied researchers of appropriate methods for their substantive research and provide improved practices in psychological and educational testing.
    

January 2016

Staff to Present, Exhibit at Spring Conferences

Buros Center staff will travel to the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) and the American Educational Research Association (AERA)/National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) annual conferences this spring. NASP will convene in New Orleans February 10-13 and AERA/NCME in Washington, DC April 7-12.

NASP.  Dr. Janet Carlson, Associate Director, will present a poster session at the 2016 annual convention of the National Association of School Psychologists. The presentation is entitled “Testing and Homeschooling: 50 Shades of Gray.” It will report state-by-state data about testing requirements in homeschool settings and articulate specific recommendations to help school psychologists develop effective strategies to better serve homeschooling parents. The session is scheduled for Wednesday February 10 from 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. in the New Orleans Marriott.

The Buros Center will also have an exhibitor's booth (#701) at NASP. Please stop by, say hello, and enjoy our giveaways.

AERA/NCME.  Buros Center graduate assistants Brooke Milstead and Betty Jean Usher-Tate will co-present a poster session entitled "Testing for Measurement Invariance on the Belizean Primary School Exam" at AERA and HyeSun Lee will give three presentations, two at AERA and one at NCME. Lee's presentations are:

Lee, H., & Geisinger, K. F. (2016, April). Propensity score estimation models: Use of complementary log-log link function. Paper will be presented at the annual meeting of American Educational Research Association, Washington, DC. 

Lee, H., Roohr, K., & Liu, O. L. (2016, April). Small sample equating for different uses of test scores in higher education. Paper will be presented at the annual meeting of National Council on Measurement in Education, Washington, DC. 

Roohr, K., Lee, H., Xu, J., & Liu, O. L. (2016, April). Analysis of a next-generation quantitative literacy assessment: Results from a pilot test. In K. Roohr (Chair), Developing and evaluating the psychometric quality of next-generation student learning outcomes assessments. Symposium will be conducted at the annual meeting of American Educational Research Association, Washington, DC.

Additionally, Dr. Kurt Geisinger is making some presentations at both the NCME and AERA conferences and he serves as the Chair of Division D's International Committee. He will also be leading a meeting of the editorial board for our journal, Applied Measurement in Education. 

The Buros Center will have an exhibitor's booth at AERA as well. 

November 2014

Buros Announces Details of 2015 Efficacy of Clinical Assessment Webinar Series

Set to kick off in January 2015, the webinar series is designed to promote the value of assessment by framing it as a significant component of practice that enriches the professional decision-making processes. The series will focus on the myriad of ways in which clinical assessment contributes to evidence-based mental health interventions.

Topics and presenters in the series include Evidence-Based Treatment (Dr. John Hunsley), Outcomes Measurement / Progress Monitoring (Dr. Bruce L. Bobbitt), Ethics of Clinical Assessment (Dr. Elizabeth Swenson), and Forensic Assessment (Dr. Kirk Heilbrun). Click here to register for a webinar.
 

October 2014

EBSCO Introduces Mental Measurements Yearbook with Tests in Print Internacional™~ Resource Brings Together English and Spanish Test Reviews and References ~

The following two paragraphs are an excerpt from EBSCO's entire press release here:

IPSWICH, Mass. — October 9, 2014 — A comprehensive guide to contemporary testing instruments in both Spanish and English is now available from EBSCO Information Services. Mental Measurements Yearbook with Tests in Print Internacional™ contains information essential for a complete evaluation of test products within diverse areas.

Comprising three databases produced by the Buros Center for Testing at the University of Nebraska, Mental Measurements Yearbook with Tests in Print Internacional combines indispensable, consumer-oriented test reviews and references for both novices and professionals together in one resource. It includes content from Mental Measurements Yearbook (MMY) and Tests in Print (TIP) as well as content previously available only in Pruebas Publicadas en Español (PPE).
 

September 2014

Annual Buros/ETS Lecture

The eighth annual Buros/Educational Testing Service lecture will be held Friday, September 5, 9:30 to 11:00 a.m. in Room 250, Teachers College Hall on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus, followed by a reception and discussion in the Buros Library. Dr. Randy Bennett will speak on Validity and Automated Essay Scoring: How Validation Can Go Wrong. The Hewlett Foundation's Automated Student Assessment Prize competition found that machines were able to grade essays as well as, perhaps better than, human raters. This talk will offer seven assertions about validity and automated essay scoring, using the Automated Student Assessment Prize competition to illustrate how validation can go badly wrong. Dr. Bennett is Norman O. Fredericksen Chair in Assessment Innovation at Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey. Since the 1980s, he has conducted research on integrating advances in the cognitive and learning sciences, technology, and measurement to create new approaches to assessment.

June 2012

New test reviews available

Reviews for these tests were recently added to Test Reviews Online:

Firestone Assessment of Violent Thoughts–Adolescent
Inventory of Legal Knowledge
Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms, 2nd Edition
Work Engagement Profile
 

July 2012

Association of Test Publishers (ATP) 2013 Innovations in Testing Conference

Buros is a sponsor of the 8th International Test Commission (ITC) conference.  This conference will be held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, between July 3rd and 5th.

Many staff members from the Buros Center will travel to Amsterdam to participate and present at this conference.  In addition to various paper and poster presentations, Dr. Geisinger will conduct a pre-conference workshop on test evaluation.
 

August 2012

Buros offers CE Workshop at APA Annual Convention

The Buros Center for Testing will offer a workshop on "Reviewing and Selecting Tests and Assessments Based on Quality and Alignment," led by Drs. Kurt Geisinger, Janet Carlson, and Jessica Jonson, at the APA Annual Convention in Orlando, FL, on August 5.

This intermediate workshop engages participants in considering, discussing, and applying how to determine if tests or assessments used for research or practice have sufficient psychometric quality and align with the intended use.