Evolving Educational Testing to Meet Students’ Needs: Design‐in‐Real‐Time Assessment (November 2024)

Design-In-Real-Time (DIRTy) assessment advances testing by creating personalized assessments tailored to individual test takers’ needs and purposes. Combining adaptive systems with culturally responsive principles, it uses modular “assessment task modules” (ATMs) linked to content standards, considers test takers’ characteristics, and dynamically compiles tests to enhance equity and effectiveness.

Analyzing the Dimensionality of O* NET Cognitive Ability Ratings to Inform Assessment Design (October 2024)

The ONET database provides detailed job knowledge and skill requirements, making it a valuable tool for workforce-aligned test development. Using multidimensional scaling (MDS), this study identified two dimensions—Social Interaction/Reasoning and Verbal/Non-Verbal skills—varying by job zone. Findings inform assessment design for adult learners and highlight MDS’s utility in analyzing ONET data.

Five key actions for redesigning adult skills assessments from learners, employees, and educators (October 2024)

Summative assessments evaluate educational effectiveness but often fail to promote ongoing learning or address workplace skills and cultural diversity. Research involving diverse focus groups, interviews, and listening sessions highlights the need for open, culturally responsive assessments that align with learners’ goals, instructional standards, and employers’ workforce demands, fostering personalized, integrated solutions.

Working bibliography of culturally sustaining and anti-racist assessment resources (April 2024)

Consistent with ASAP’s assessment principles of offering a justice-oriented, antiracist approach, we prepared a working bibliography of culturally sustaining and anti-racist assessment resources. We plan to periodically update this bibliography (click on the image to the left), so feedback on the structure, content, and organization of the bibliography is welcome, as are suggestions for resources not yet included (asap@umass.edu).

Defining and Assessing Literacy and Numeracy Skills for 21st Century Adult Learners: A Summary of Research and Practice (September 2022)

Numerous definitions of literacy and numeracy have been developed to date. In this report (click on the image to the left), we summarized and analyzed 20 definitions of literacy and numeracy. These definitions often respond to specific stakeholders’ goals and agendas. In this paper, however, we do not aim to provide an integrated definition of literacy and numeracy for all people in all places. Instead, we believe operational definitions of constructs as relevant as literacy and numeracy must respond to specific needs given at a specific moment.

Assessment Resources in Adult Education and Workforce Development (September 2022)

As part of ASAP we reviewed the literature and practices in adult education and workforce development to compile information on existing assessments and related resources. We plan to periodically update this compilation (click on the image to the left), so feedback on the structure, content, and organization of the compilation is welcome, as are suggestions for resources not yet included (asap@umass.edu).

Designing Digital Tasks for Diverse Adult Learners to Solve Real-World Problems Webinar (October 2023)

On October 4, 2023, the National Coalition of Adult Basic Education hosted a webinar for the UMass ASAP project (click on the image to the left to access the recording of the event). During this event, Javier Suárez-Álvarez, Duy Pham, and Maria Elena Oliveri explained the design principles behind the development of ASAP tasks. They showcased examples of culturally responsive assessments aimed at evaluating the problem-solving skills of adult learners, designed to fulfill the assessment needs of both educators and learners. More information about assessment needs of adult education can be found here.

New Measurable Skills Gain Models Are Coming, Help Us Build Them! (June 2023)

Webinar hosted by the National Coalition of Adult Basic Education on 06/13/2023 for the UMass ASAP project (click on the image to the left to access the recording of the event). In this talk, presenters Anson Green, Maria Elena Oliveri, Javier Suárez-Álvarez, and Jen Vanek discussed an opportunity to build new measurable skills gain models to use as alternative measures for reporting purpose in adult education. More information about these new alternative measures is available in this link.

EdTech Bytes: Generative Artificial Intelligence — Making it Work (April 2023)

On April 21, 2023, World Education hosted a webinar featuring two presenters from the UMass ASAP Project, Javier Suárez-Álvarez and Anson Green (click on the image to the left to access the recording of the event). Along with two other experts, they discussed the application of Generative Artificial Intelligence in creating assessments and training materials for adult learners.

Texas Standards 2.0 Webinar (November 2021)

Webinar recorded on 11/3/2021 for the UMass ASAP project (click on the image to the left to access the recording of the event). Here, presenters Maria Elena Oliveri, Karl Haigler, and Anson Green provide an explanation of how the Texas 2.0 adult education/workforce development standards were created. These standards bridged adult education and job training programs using the O*NET job classification system. More info about the Texas Standards 2.0 project, including the Standards themselves, is available here.

AI in Adult Education (October 2023)

In this podcast episode, Associate Professor Javier Suárez-Álvarez, Associate Director of the UMass ASAP project, and Aaron Heuser, Managing Director of the Data Science and Advanced Analytics Group at the American Institutes for Research, discussed the potential and challenges of using AI in Adult Education to create useful tools to assist educators, adult learners, and researchers. Click on the image to the left to access the recording of the event.