Psychometrician

Center for Applied Linguistics•Washington, DC

4d•$101,970•Hybrid

About The Position

Under the guidance of the Director of Psychometrics and Quantitative Research, the Psychometrician is responsible for designing and conducting psychometric analyses of test performance; conducting psychometric analyses related to test construction, validity, reliability, equating, and scoring; preparing technical reports; developing, maintaining, and applying quality control procedures; providing quantitative guidance to professional research staff at CAL; and coordinating external quantitative resources on behalf of the organization. The Psychometrician will also provide quantitative guidance to other researchers at CAL and coordinate external quantitative resources on behalf of the organization.

Requirements

A Ph.D. in Educational Measurement, Psychometrics, or related field.
A minimum of five years of demonstrated operational experience in designing and conducting statistical and psychometric analyses for high stakes testing programs.
Strong demonstrated experience in applying the Rasch model to a variety of psychometric issues
Experience in conducting analysis on performance and polytomously-scored tasks.
Demonstrated proficiency in programming in R or Python.
Proficiency in using SPSS, Winsteps, Facets, and other statistical and psychometric software.
Create and apply quality control procedures in creating and maintaining databases, conducting statistical and psychometric analyses, conducting other quantitative research, and producing technical reports.
Program, document procedures, and instruct junior members of the team in statistical software such as R, Python, SPSS, Winsteps, Stata, and SAS.
Create replicable procedures for routine psychometric work.
Write narrative to accompany psychometric analyses for technical reports and other documentation.

Nice To Haves

Experience working within a psychometric program in a K-12 U.S. Educational Context, and preferably in language testing.
Experience communicating effectively in English with clients and internal and external stakeholders in high-stakes contexts.
Experience working as a member of a team in producing timely error-free deliverables.
Demonstrated ability to work with a diverse, multi-disciplinary professional team of researchers and language testers.
Strong demonstrated experience with computerized adaptive assessments.
Experience in conducting standard setting study and/or alignment studies.

Responsibilities

Design, and conduct psychometric analyses for the WIDA ACCESS program
Plan, conduct, document and present psychometric and statistical analyses using classical test theory and the Rasch model with Winsteps and Facets software, including analyses related to item quality, rater performance, DIF, reliability and classification consistency, standard setting, equating, scoring, and reporting
Investigate and evaluate new approaches to conducting psychometric analyses in language testing
Establish and monitor quality control procedures related to quantitative analyses, from data cleaning to final technical reports, ensuring the reliability and integrity of results
Provide guidance to professional researchers on proposal design and quantitative analytical approaches upon request and participate in writing quantitatively-oriented portions of proposals as needed
Support outreach and collaboration, including research, development and client development activities with external partners, academia, innovators in education and language, and the public as needed