Maryland Assessment Research Center (MARC)

2015 MARC Conference

The Fifteenth Annual Maryland Assessment Conference:

Test Fairness in the New Generation of Large-Scale Assessment

  • Jointly supported by the Maryland State Department of Education and the Maryland Assessment Research Center. 
  • Each topic will be given a one-hour block of time, including a 50-minute presentation by each speaker followed by 10 minutes of Q and A.

Presentation Schedule

Thursday, October 29th, 2015

TimeTitlePresenter(s)
7:00-8:30

Registration and Breakfast

 
8:30-8:45

Welcome and Comments

Hong Jiao (University of Maryland)
8:45-9:45Resolving the paradox of rich performance tasks with implications for fairnessRobert Mislevy (ETS)
9:45-10:45How to achieve comparability of testing across different modes?Wim van der Linden (Pacific Metrics)
10:45-11:00Break
11:00-12:00The effect of compromised items on credentialing exam classification accuracyPatrick Obregon and Ray Yan (FINRA)
12:00-1:00Lunch
1:00-2:00Considerations in making next gen assessment accessible and fairLinda Zimmerman, Jan McSorley and Paul Grudnitski(Pearson)
2:00-3:00Redesigning the SAT using principles of fairness and equitySherral Miller, Michael Walker, Lynn Letukas(College Board)
3:00-3:15Break
3:15-4:15Test fairness in international assessmentsMatthias von Davier (ETS)
4:15-5:15Culture in fair assessment practicesEdynn Sato (Pearson)

Friday, October 30th, 2015

7:00-8:30

Registration and Breakfast

 
8:30-9:30Contrasting various explanatory approaches to think about and analyze test data to address fairness: causal, contextual, ecological Bruno D. Zumbo and Amery D. Wu (University of British Columbia)
9:30-10:30Using Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition to explore differential item functioning:application to PISA 2009 readingDaniel Bolt, Maritza Dowling, Yu-Shan Shih and Wei-Yin Loh (University of Wisconsin, Madison)
10:30-10:45Break 
10:45-11:45Fairness considerations in automated essay scoringMo Zhang, Neil Dorans, Chen Li and André Rupp (ETS)
11:45-12:45Defining and Challenging Fairness in Tests: Key opportunities in test specifications, standard setting, and score interpretationsChristina Schneider, Karla Egan and Brian Gong (Center for Assessment)
12:45-1:00Closing Comments Robert Lissitz (University of Maryland)