Liane N. Patsula Receives 1997 Doctoral Fellowship Award in Applied Measurement

New York, NY, August 1997 - Professional Examination Service (PES) is pleased to announce the selection of Liane N. Patsula as the recipient of the 1997 Doctoral Fellowship Award in Applied Measurement. Established as part of the PES public service mission, the year-long fellowship provides an opportunity for research on measurement and public-policy issues related to the development, validation, and use of licensure and certification examinations.

The award will support Patsula as she completes her doctoral studies in the Psychometrics program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. With supervision from Hariharan Swaminathan, Ph.D., Professor of Education and Psychology at the university, Patsula will investigate Item Response Theory procedures for equating tests with dichotomously and polytomously scored items. The two item types represent a key distinction in measurement theory, with dichotomously scored items referring to questions that are scored either right or wrong, such as multiple-choice questions; and polytomously scored items referring to questions that include a range on which candidates may score (e.g., 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5), such as essays, simulation exercises, and portfolio assessments. Patsula's research will investigate the effects of variations in a number of factors including test length, differences in the ability distribution of the candidate population, and number of response categories on three procedures for placing test scores on a common scale. For credentialing organizations planning a move to more "authentic" assessments, this research will provide valuable information enabling groups to compare scores on these new kinds of tests with scores from multiple-choice examinations.

Patsula holds a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics from McGill University, as well as a Master's degree in Measurement and Evaluation from the University of Ottawa. She has held internship and assistantship positions at the Educational Testing Service and the Law School Admission Council, and was recently awarded the prestigious Psychometrics Fellowship by the University of Massachusetts. Patsula has published on the subject of adapting tests for cross-cultural assessment, and has presented several papers at academic meetings sponsored by the National Council on Measurement in Education, the American Educational Research Association, and the American Psychological Association.

Submissions for the Doctoral Fellowship Award were judged by a panel of three nationally recognized measurement experts: Michael T. Kane, Ph.D., Professor of Kinesiology at the University of Wisconsin; Jeffrey D. Kromrey, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Educational Measurement and Research at the University of South Florida; and Charles Lewis, Ph.D., Principal Research Scientist at the Educational Testing Service and recipient of the 1996 PES Award for Scientific Contributions to Credentialing.

Fellowship support for doctoral study is one of several annual PES awards. For more information about the PES awards program and other public service activities, please contact: Karen Cullen, Public Service Activities Manager, Professional Examination Service, 475 Riverside Drive, New York, NY 10115-0089, (212) 367-4276, fax: (212) 367-4266, e-mail: mission@proexam.org.

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