School of Education, University of Colorado at Boulder
Measurement in and for Mathematics Education
The goal of this presentation is to look carefully at the role of measurement in mathematics education. To do so, I will introduce Item Response Theory, specifically one version of this psychometric theory, in the context of the study of young children's learning of whole number concepts in inner-city school settings. The presentation will describe one hypothetical learning trajectory in the context of a method of instruction. The theoretical base for this trajectory was originally proffered by researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. The central feature of this theory of learning asks how students interpret "word problems" and integrates student's chosen strategies into a theory of instruction. In this presentation, we ask how the theory of learning informs the construction of test items, the scaling of these test items, and the building of measures. We close by examining recent changes in psychometrics and their implications for measurement in mathematics education.
Friday, October 15th, 2010, 3:15pm
Neuberger Hall room 350
(Refreshments served at 3:00 in NH 344)
* Sponsored by the Maseeh Mathematics and Statistics Colloquium Series Fund and the Fariborz Maseeh Department of Mathematics & Statistics, PSU. This event is free and open to the public.