EDUC alumni and faculty well represented at NERA 2023

Content

Jamila Lyiscott delivers the opening keynote address at NERA 2023.

The College of Education left an indelible mark on this year's Northeastern Educational Research Association (NERA) conference in Trumbull, Connecticut, on October 18-20.

Associate Professor Jamila Lyiscott delivered the opening keynote address, titled "The Future of Racial & Educational Justice is Now".

Three College of Education scholars, including alumna Maura O'Riordan '23PhD, alumna Francis O'Donnell '19PhD, and doctoral student Mina Lee helped co-chair and organize the conference, along with a fourth colleague not affiliated with UMass.

(L-R) Maura O'Riordan, Mina Lee, and Francis O'Donnell, three of the co-chairs for NERA 2023.

Lisa Keller, associate professor of research, educational measurement, and psychometrics (REMP), and associate director of the Center for Educational Assessment, was named president-elect of NERA.

Ling Chen, a doctoral student in higher education, won the conference's annual 3-minute thesis competition as well.

Additionally, dozens of EDUC faculty and graduate students delivered conference papers and presentations:

• The Influence of Bilingualism on Children's Self-Efficacy in Mathematics From a Sociocultural Perspective. Yuhwa Hong, University of Massachusetts Amherst

• Classification Accuracy and Consistency of a Depression and Anxiety Scale Cut Scores on Salvadoran Students. Fernando Mena Serrano, University of Massachusetts Amherst

• Test Length and Sample Size Requirements for Applying the IRT-1PL Model to Formative Assessments. Eduardo Crespo Cruz, Lisa Keller, University of Massachusetts – Amherst

• A Discourse Analysis of Children's Picture Books on the Topic of Climate Change. Wenyan Yang, University of Massachusetts - Amherst

• Exploring Response Process Data from a Performance-Based Assessment for Medical Licensing: A Network Analysis Approach. Nathaniel Smith, University of Massachusetts – Amherst; Rich Feinberg, NBME; Chunyan Liu, NBME; Lisa Keller, University of Massachusetts Amherst

• A Study of Adult Education Programs' Usage of Score Reports for the MAPT-CCR. Kevin O'Rourke, University of Massachusetts Amhers

• The Content Validity Evidence in Virtual Reality (VR) Assessments: A Literature Review. Jungwon Kyung, Craig Wells, University of Massachusetts - Amhers

• The New Potential of K12 Educational Assessments. Stephen G. Sireci, Eduardo Crespo Cruz, University of Massachusetts Amherst

• The Role of College Undermatching in College GPA and Persistence Among First-Generation College Students. Ling Chen, University of Massachusetts Amherst

• Addressing Equity and Accessibility Issues within English Exams for Adult Learners. Gabriel Rodríguez Matos, Jennifer Lewis, Kevin O’Rourke, Vafa Alakbarova, Tram-Anh Tran Nguyen, April Zenisky, Maura O’Riordan, & Stephen G. Sireci, University of Massachusetts Amherst. 

• Digital Literacy Among Adult English Learners and its Implications for Test Development Gabriel Rodriguez & Maura O'Riordan, University of Massachusetts Amherst

• Developing an English Language Proficiency Test for Adult Learners: A Review of Item/Task Formats. Tram-Anh Tran Nguyen, Maura O'Riordan, April Zenisky, & Stephen G. Sireci, University of Massachusetts Amherst

• A review of reporting strategies from existing English language tests. Ketan, April Zenisky, & Maura O'Riordan, University of Massachusetts Amherst

• Engaging Adult English Language Learners through Focus Groups for Test Development. Gabriel Rodriguez, Jennifer Lewis & Tram-Anh Tran Nguyen, University of Massachusetts Amherst

• Time Literacy: Academic Support for Undergraduates with a Learning Disability. Darrell Earnest, Zander Crowley, Rachel Adams, University of Massachusetts Amherst

• Promoting Validity in Online Assessments of English Language Proficiency: Teachers' Perspectives. Tram-Anh Tran Nguyen, Stephen Sireci, University of Massachusetts Amherst

• Attitude When Using Digital Devices and Academic Performance: Difference Between PISA 2018 and TIMSS 2019. Dukjae Lee, Lisa Keller, University of Massachusetts Amherst

• Every Child Counts: Validity Evidence Based on Internal Structure for ICAN. Ketan, Craig Wells, University of Massachusetts Amherst

• Efficacy of a Jewish Mental Health Training for Educators: The BaMidbar Program. Rachel Bond, Ian Barron, Angela D'Souza, University of Massachusetts Amherst

• Exploring the Intersection of Psychometrics and Machine Learning: A Natural Language Processing Analysis of Recent Literature Trends. Nate Smith, Dongwei Wang, Lisa Keller, University of Massachusetts Amherst

• Unveiling the Scholarly Landscape: A Topic Model Analysis of the Psychometric Literature on Machine Learning. Dongwei Wang & Lisa Keller, University of Massachusetts Amherst

• Evaluating Existing Standard Alignment Studies Using NLP: A Proof-of-Concept Study for the Adult Skills Assessment Program (“ASAP”) Standard Alignment using ROC Analysis. Fernando Mena Serrano, Nate Smith, Javier Suarez Alvarez, University of Massachusetts Amherst

• Automated Item/Task Generation for Adult Literacy and Numeracy: Unleashing the Potential of Large-Language Models. Brendan Longe, Tram-Anh Tran Nguyen, Eduardo Crespo Cruz, Javier Suarez Alvarez, University of Massachusetts Amherst