Measurement, Evaluation, and Assessment
Current Doctoral Students
Jill L. Adelson is a Doctoral Candidate in Educational Psychology and is completing a joint degree in MEA and in Gifted Education, with a cognate in Mathematics Education. In 2008, she earned her Certificate in Quantitative Research Methods in Psychology. Her dissertation uses multilevel propensity score analyses to examine the effects of gifted programming on the achievement and academic self-concept of both gifted and non-gifted students and also extends the application of sensitivity analyses to effect sizes. Jill's other current research projects involve HLM, instrument design, propensity score analyses, regression-discontinuity design, and Monte Carlo simulation studies.
Paul Hernandez earned his B.A. in sociology at UC Santa Barbara and an M.A. in Psychology from CSU San Marcos. General research interests include cross-cultural testing issues, ethics in testing and the equivalence of translated tests.
Burcu Kaniskan joined to our program in 2007 right after earning her Masters’ of Art degree in measurement and evaluation from Kent State University. Her research interest includes multilevel moderated mediational analysis, SEM, differential item functions, and longitudinal designs. As a substantive area, she is particularly interested in public health, HIV prevention, health psychology, early prevention of diseases and health promotion. In addition, having studied chemistry in her undergraduate education, she is very interested in examining potential tools for teaching, learning and interpreting the statistics as a scientific argument.
Cheryl earned her first doctoral degree in mechanical engineering. She had been an engineering faculty in universities in Australia and Singapore for a few years. Throughout her teaching and research, she started to develop a strong interest in human development especially in the aspects of learning and education. While teaching robotics to university students as an associate professor in mechanical engineering, Cheryl enrolled a part time bachelor degree program in Early Childhood Education. As the interest in learning and education grows, part time involvement seemed not enough. Cheryl resigned and joined the Educational Psychology Department as a Ph.D. Student in Jan. 2006. Her current research interests include Engineering Education Measurement, Vertical Scaling and Early Childhood STEM Education.
Karen Rambo came to UCONN in 2007 after teaching mathematics in Texas where she worked with gifted middle school students. She earned her undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Education from East Texas Baptist University and her masters from Texas A&M in Commerce in Educational Administration. Her research interests include large scale assessments, item response theory, gifted education, and mathematics education.
Wei Xia earned her M.A in Applied Developmental Psychology in Boston College, and started to the MEA program in 2007. Her general research interests include measurement in Literacy (English) Education, Large-scale Assessments, Item response theory, Early Childhood Development and ESL.
Melissa Eastwood is an Education Psychology student in the Measurement,
Evaluation, and Assessment program. She earned bachelor of art degrees in
mathematics and psychology from Providence College.
Gilbert Andrada is an Educational Psychology doctoral student in the Measurement, Evaluation, and Assessment program. He earned a Master of Science in Psychology at Purdue University and has been working at the Connecticut State Department Bureau of Student Assessment in the Research, Program Evaluation and Psychometric Units. His duties include applied research, program evaluation, and test development. He is currently engaged in research involving Technical Issues in Large Scale Assessment -- accommodations, alternate assessments, modified assessments, accountability, and interim assessments.
Ethan Arenson started the MEA program in 2006. Prior to coming to UConn, he taught high school mathematics for five years, and worked in the educational testing industry (both at the American Institutes for Research and at CTB/McGraw-Hill) for four years. His research interests include Bayesian approaches to item response theory, equating and vertical scaling methods, generalizability theory, and statistics education.
