Prof. Richard J. Shavelson (Stanford University)

Programm

• Datum: 02.09.2009
  Zeit: 17:15 - 18:45
  Ort: Raum 211b, Ludwigstr. 28/VG

On the Measurement of Competency

Today, across multiple sectors of society, policy makers, educators, businessmen and professionals are pushing psychological and educational measurement to focus on individual and group competencies.  Competencies have recently been defined as, “… complex ability constructs that are closely related to performance in real-life situations” (Hartig, Klieme, & Leutner, 2008, p. v).  In this talk, the definition of competencies is unpacked so as to make it amenable to measurement.  This unpacking leads to a characterization of competency measurement as a somewhat unique combination of task demands, response demands, and corresponding scoring system.  Concrete examples of competency measurement are presented, drawing on research from business, military, and education.  From this characterization, a statistical theory for modeling performance on competency measurements is set forth—generalizability (G) theory. G theory is uniquely positioned to model the nature of task and response sampling used in competency measurements as well as the nature of the scoring systems that go with them.  G theory is then applied to several of the examples presented previously.  The results of specific findings for each example are presented; then general findings of competency measurement are summarized. The talk concludes by pulling together its various threads into a model for the measurement of competency.