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Professor Sireci to receive the Chancellor's Medal and deliver a lecture in the Distinguished Faculty Lecture Series at the University of Massachusetts |
Hardly anyone likes taking tests - especially not the students, teachers,
and schools that fall afoul of this major part of the educational
accountability system. Professor Sireci, a parent and experienced
psychometrician concerned for his own children's education, will attempt
to bridge the gap between testing opponents and proponents by arguing
that, under appropriate conditions, educational tests are enormously
useful in improving student learning.
According to Professor Ronald Hambleton, Sireci's colleague and friend, "Professor Sireci is highly deserving of the Chancellor's Medal. He is a gifted teacher and advisor with an ability to motivate people to accomplish much more than they thought possible. His research is on cutting-edge topics such as test accommodations, national assessment, and test validation, and places him among the elite researchers in his field. Finally, he touches people with his generosity, good cheer, and passion for his work, family, colleagues, and friends. He is a great colleague and friend, and an outstanding member of our faculty at the University of Massachusetts."
Professor Sireci is Director of the Center for Educational Assessment in the School of Education, an adjunct associate professor of Psychology, and a member of the faculty since 1995. He teaches graduate courses in statistics, scaling methods, test development, educational assessment, validity theory, and research methods and supervises and serves as a mentor to doctoral students. Sireci's research activities include evaluating a variety of test components, capabilities and assessment methods. He also seeks out, directs and coordinates research grant activities and contracts for the Center for Educational Assessment.
Sireci currently serves on several advisory boards, including the Graduate Management Admissions Council Technical Advisory Committee, the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards Assessment Certification Advisory Panel, the Texas Technical Advisory Committee, and the New England Comprehensive Assessment Program Technical Advisory Committee. He is a Fellow of Division 5 of the American Psychological Association, President of the Northeastern Educational Research Association, a senior scientist for the Gallup Organization and a member of the board of directors for the National Council on Measurement in Education.
In 2003 he received the School of Education's Outstanding Teacher Award. Sireci reviews articles for more than a dozen professional journals and he is on the editorial boards of Applied Measurement in Education, Educational and Psychological Measurement, the European Journal of Psychological Assessment, and the International Journal of Testing. He is also co-editor of the Journal of Applied Testing Technology.
Sireci earned Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Psychology from Loyola College in 1985 and 1987, and a Doctorate in Psychology from Fordham University in 1993.
