Research Topics:
CTB R&D Initiative

Overview

Each year, CTB Research invites proposals for Research and Development (R&D) projects that advance the science and practice of measurement in support of learning. We seek to identify and support leading research that promises to answer important theoretical, methodological and practical questions, and to support the development of ideas that will advance the quality of measurement and learning practices.

The principal investigators on these projects include McGraw-Hill employees, but also often include investigators from outside organizations. Since the inception of the R&D program in 2007, researchers from several organizations across the United States and Canada have participated in R&D projects.

Strategic priorities are selected each year by CTB Research. R&D projects are selected that address these strategic priorities. For the 2013 program, three priorities were selected:

2013 R&D Program Strategic Priorities

• Better assessment in technologically rich environments. Examples may include technologically enhanced test content, interactive test delivery and response capture, adaptive testing for adaptive learning environments, automated scoring of complex examinee responses.
• Increasing the utility, relevance, and impact of educational testing on educational practice and policy. Examples may include development of methods to capture, store, search, share, analyze, and visualize large structured and unstructured educational data sets; innovative approaches to establishing international benchmarks and/or state-to-state comparisons based on Common Core assessments.
• Advancing psychometric and/or statistical methods and practice. Examples may include item response modeling, test assembly methods, computer adaptive testing methods, large-scale assessment design.
• What advances in learning sciences suggest about the future of assessment? Examples might review the research published through one or more of the National Science Foundation funded Science of Learning Centers to specifically identify promising directions for assessments grounded in the science of learning.

Projects were selected and funded after a blind review by CTB Research. The funding for selected projects is provided by McGraw-Hill Education as part of its commitment to bring innovation to educational measurement.

The submissions window for the 2013 R&D program has closed. To learn more about the projects that have been previously selected for the R&D program, please explore the abstracts below.