Instructor: 

Susu Zhang (szhan105 at illinois dot edu)

Sunbeom Kwon (TA)

LMS and Syllabus:

Moodle (Learn@Illinois)

Syllabus (8/21/2023)

Course Description:

Measurement is the assigning of numbers to individuals in a coherent way, to represent various cognitive and non-cognitive properties of the individuals, such as abilities, progress, attitudes, and personality traits. Developing reliable and valid instruments is at the core of measurement theory, which greatly overlaps with psychometrics. The former encompasses more of concepts and tasks, whereas the latter emphasizes the statistical methodologies.

Covered Topics:

• the fundamental concepts in measurement (e.g., reliability and validity);

• different psychometric theories (e.g., Classical Test Theory and Item Response Theory);

• the process and statistical techniques for test construction and evaluation (e.g., item analyses, equating, & scaling);

• other testing-related practical topics (e.g., adaptive testing, cognitive diagnosis, detection of noneffortful responses, & automated scoring).

Lab sessions:

For the R book with the lab handouts, click here.

Is this course right for you?

There are two overarching aspects to test development, assessment and measurement. Assessment focuses more on the design aspect, e.g., the type of questions/tasks you use (questionnaire, interview, etc.) and the psychological theory behind these tasks. Measurement focuses on how we assign numbers (e.g., calculate a score) and the statistical considerations on assigning the numbers (e.g., is it reliable and valid). This course focuses on measurement and hence will be statistics heavy.