Learning and Assessment Foundations and Innovations Center

The Learning and Assessment Foundations and Innovations Center is comprised of a team of cognitive scientists, data scientists, statisticians, psychometricians, Natural Language Processing specialists and literacy researchers who conduct foundational research to improve learning and assessment.

Research groups

The center is organized into two groups. Learn more about each and view current projects and sample publications.

Research goals

The knowledge and capabilities developed by center staff are designed to:

• drive innovation to inform assessment development
• design effective learning and assessment environments
• provide opportunities for underserved learners and develop strategies for the use of assessment in reducing inequities
• investigate the development of more socioculturally responsive and inclusive assessment practices
• expand methodologies for fairness research in digital learning and assessment
• examine the role of social and cultural context in learning and assessment performance, and explore models that take context into account when interpreting assessment results
• evaluate the role of social and emotional learning in creating equitable learning environments
   

Research applications

Our research includes the development and evaluation of assessment innovations used in:

• collaborative learning environments
• research on metacognition and self-regulation
• approaches to personalized learning
• research on literacy development
   

Assessment fairness

We believe everyone should have equal access to assessments that accurately measure their skills and knowledge. Our research:

• investigates innovative approaches to promoting assessment fairness in the digital era
• develops broader fairness methodologies that take complex digital context into account
• evaluates appropriateness of technological tools and assessment methodologies for different populations