On the last day of the conference, Prof. Nathan R Kuncel (University of Minnesota, USA), one of the keynote speakers of the IAEA’s 45th conference delivered his lecture on the topic “Predictors and Process in Educational Assessment”.
Research has largely focused on course grade outcomes and degree completion. Although both are clearly important, there is increasing interest in predicting a student’s success across multiple domains. To do this effectively, decision makers first need to collect multiple measures of student skills and attributes including assessments of interpersonal and intrapersonal skills. They then need to effectively combine the information to make good decisions.
Prof. Nathan R Kuncel also discussed a program of research in which he has worked to expand the definition of student success and examine how personality and other predictors are related to a diverse set of outcomes from primary school through graduate school. His work has been combined with research on the process that decision makers actually use to evaluate the whole student. The research suggests that the combination of intuitive decision making and sometimes poor quality measures like personal statements and unstructured interviews both lead to low quality decisions. However, these problems can be overcome. Prof. Nathan R Kuncel concluded his lecture with suggestions for improving both predictors and process in educational assessment.
Note that, the 45th International Association for Educational Assessment (IAEA) Annual Conference “Assessment and Decision Making: Individual and Institutional Solutions” brings together more than 300 delegates from 55 countries. Being a permanent member of the organization, the State Examination Center (SEC) closely cooperates with IAEA on establishment of international cooperation in the field of educational assessment and attend its events regularly. The IAEA has been holding such conferences every year since 1975. Azerbaijan was the first CIS country to host IAEA conference in 2007.
Note: Azerbaijan State News Agency (AZERTAC) is the official media partner of the State Examination Center in covering the IAEA 2019.
