ITEMS Corner: Educating the Educational Measurement Community

Abstract

Welcome to the first issue of the Instructional Topics in Educational Measurement Series (ITEMS) of my 3-year tenure as editor. I first want to thank André Rupp, the outgoing editor, for his patience and time discussing technical details of the modern ITEMS module format (more on his work below). I also want to thank Susan Davis-Becker and Michael Peabody for their work leading the Publications Committee and guidance through the transition process. Finally, I am thankful for the assistance from Deborah Harris, outgoing editor of Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice (EM:IP), and Zhongmin Cui, incoming editor, with whom I look forward to working over our tenures.

I am grateful for the opportunity to lead ITEMS. As an academic, I expend considerable energy teaching future professionals of our field. However, being an educator is much more than simply teaching. It also requires advising, mentorship, and recruiting. I envision ITEMS as a confluence of these on a grand scale. Of course, teaching and learning is at the core of ITEMS. However, informing others about educational measurement involves more than teaching a technical short course on item response theory or reliability. It also requires catering to the needs of the learner, providing resources to fill gaps in knowledge or to review material learned years ago, as well as giving guidance to young professionals about the opportunities in the field.

Since 1987, ITEMS has been published as a part of EM:IP. Until May 2017, ITEMS modules were published as didactic articles, appealing to practitioners seeking more technical expertise, K–12 teachers desiring resources to learn about assessment and measurement, as well as graduate students desiring to supplement their education. After a hiatus of just over a year, ITEMS returned in 2018 in a new form. To bring ITEMS into the 21st century (Rupp, 2018), then-editor André Rupp reimagined ITEMS for a digital landscape. Over the next three and a half years twenty-seven high-quality digital modules were published. These digital modules blended voice-narrated content with applied examples, exercise sets, software exemplars, and other unique resources only possible on a digital platform. These modules would not have been possible without the expertise and dedication of the authors developing the incredible products. The behind-the-scenes instructional design team also deserves recognition. These volunteers worked countless hours to implement the vision of what we now see as digital ITEMS modules. Having learned the intricacies of building a module, it is abundantly clear that these digital modules would not have been possible without the instructional team's effort. Thank you, Xi Lu and Jonathan Lehrfeld for your substantial contribution.

As I begin my tenure, I plan to build on the accomplished history of ITEMS with new modules appealing to the varied interests both within and beyond the NCME community. This includes practitioners and professionals in K–12 assessment, licensure and certification, higher education assessment, and classroom assessment, among others. I plan to work with professionals from multiple disciplines to amplify diverse perspectives that historically have not been prominent in the educational measurement community. I encourage professionals with interest in authoring a module to reach out to me directly. This includes both senior and young professionals, as well as advanced graduate students, who desire to provide distinct perspectives in the development of digital pedagogical content. I will also work with professionals within the community to author modules focused on the profession itself. ITEMS provides a platform to assist in educating the public, stakeholders, and each other in the NCME community on what we do as a profession. This can motivate students to study in the field, provide graduate students with an understanding of the opportunities provided by different employment settings, and inform the public and constituents about the level of thought and expertise that goes into making informed assessment and measurement decisions.

I'm excited to introduce the first module of my tenure. In this issue, Richard Feinberg, Carol Morrison, and Mark Raymond author the module “Unusual Things that Usually Occur in a Credentialing Testing Program,” in which they illustrate the components of the assessment life cycle, outline the units, roles, and handoffs within a testing organization, and provide examples of risks and common problematic areas that arise in operational testing. As Andrew Ho said during a discussion during a recent NCME webinar, “one of the things that has become clear . . . is how wonderful a licensure and certification testing community we have in NCME and how sometimes we talk past them” (Ho et al., 2021). These professionals represent a critical voice and unique perspective in the community. This module showcases the intricacies of what operational testing entails, outlining special circumstances that measurement professionals may encounter. I encourage graduate students who are exploring employment options as well as professionals in other settings unfamiliar with testing operations to work through this excellent ITEMS module.

This module also serves another purpose; it allows me to formally introduce Richard Feinberg as the associate editor of ITEMS. Dr. Feinberg is a senior psychometrician at the National Board of Medical Examiners with scholarly interests focused on score reporting and data visualization. He brings excitement and perspective to ITEMS. In his words:

“Across the diverse ways in which an individual can be connected to our measurement community (i.e., graduate training program, position in academia, or industry of employment), ITEMS has been a great resource for the past 35 years. I've frequented the ITEMS portal many times for my own use as well as recommending modules to others. As user behavior and needs evolve in consuming information, I'm excited to be a part of keeping ITEMS engaging and helping to encourage new modules that address modern assessment topics.”

As I began leading ITEMS with immense energy, I encourage professionals and graduate students interested in developing a module or in recommending a topic that would be beneficial to include in the catalogue to reach out to me ([email protected]).