BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Dr. Mark J. Gierl is Professor of Educational Psychology in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta. His specialization is educational and psychological testing. He received his PhD from the College of Education at the University of Illinois, Urbana—Champaign. Professor Gierl’s current research program focuses on automatic item generation. He co-edited the 2013 book, "Automatic Item Generation: Theory and Practice" (Routledge, 2013), with Professor Tom Haladyna from Arizona State University. He is also the co-author of the most recent book on this topic “Advanced Methods in Automatic Item Generation” (Routledge, 2021), with Professor Hollis Lai and Mr. Vasily Tanygin. The information presented in this book is based on the outcomes from his automatic item generation research program over the last 13 years.

Professor Gierl works closely with government agencies, testing companies, and academic publishers to implement item generation principles produced from his research into their test development practices. For example, he received a grant for three consecutive years (2012-2014) to conduct item generation research for the testing company CTB/McGraw—Hill in Monterey, California through their Innovation Research and Development Program. More recently, he worked with ACT Inc. in Iowa City from 2013 to 2020 to implement his research on automatic item generation into their operational test development process. Professor Gierl has also conducted automatic item generation research with the American Dental Association (USA), the American Board of Internal Medicine (USA), the Australian Council for Educational Research (Australia), the Australian Dental Council (Australia), Cengage Learning (USA), the College Board (USA), the Educational Records Bureau (USA), the Medical Council of Canada (Canada), the National Board of Medical Examiners (USA), the Pharmacy Examining Board of Canada (Canada), Prometric (USA), Reed-Elsevier (The Netherlands), and Western Governors University (USA).

Professor Gierl has written 5 books, 33 book chapters, 95 refereed journal articles, 241 conference papers, and 59 technical reports—many of which were co—authored with his graduate students. He has also delivered 75 invited lectures throughout the world. Professor Gierl is the recipient of the 2009 American Educational Research Association (AERA) Division D Significant Contribution to Educational Measurement and Research Methodology Award for his co—edited book, "Cognitive Diagnostic Assessment for Education: Theory and Applications" and the 2016 National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) Annual Award for his research program on automatic item generation. He received the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2017 from his Alma Mater, the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Professor Gierl has been awarded over $10.2 million in external research funding from agencies in Canada and the United States—including 6 grants as the principal investigator and 10 grants as a co—investigator from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). His most recent SSHRC grant is titled "Using Automated Processes To Generate Educational Test Items And Their Associated Solutions And Rationales To Support Formative Feedback".

Professor Gierl holds the Tier I Canada Research Chair in Educational Measurement.

(January, 2024)