youth Assessment and Learning Lab 

Welcome to the website of the youth Assessment and Learning Lab (y'ALL)! 

My name is Michael Matta. I earned my PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Milano-Bicocca and completed my postdoctoral training in applied measurement and educational assessment at Northeastern University and the University of Houston. I currently serve as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychological, Health, and Learning Sciences in the College of Education at the University of Houston, where I am the director of the y'ALL Lab. 

My research examines how student scores from educational assessments are interpreted and used to guide educational decisions. For the past decade, my work has mostly focused on writing assessment, an area of particular complexity in which subjective evaluation criteria, educator beliefs, and emerging technologies for automated scoring can influence judgments of student performance. In particular, I have studied which elements of assessment design and educator characteristics introduce bias into the evaluations of student performance. 

A central goal of my research agenda is to identify factors in the assessment process that can be changed (from test design to educator evaluation practices) to reduce bias and support accurate and responsible interpretation and use of assessment scores. Through experimental and correlational research, the long-term goal for my lab is to advance evidence-based assessment practices to support fair decisions for all students. 

Please see our current projects for more information! Students interested in joining the lab or colleagues who want to know more about our studies can email me at mmatta@uh.edu