Making Measurement and Evaluation Courses More Appealing and Effective

The purpose of this tutorial is to provide assistance to colleagues teaching measurement and evaluation courses, many of whom are not measurement specialists. This can be a daunting course for both students and teachers. This tutorial will provide several ways to quickly establish course relevance by means of examples from contemporary situations. It will also provide examples of how to engage students in actual measurement experiences requiring them to develop practical measurements and evaluate validity, reliability and objectivity. Further, there will be examples of integration of statistical tools with measurement applications that encourage and exemplify measure and evaluation applications. One approach emphasized is development of a common dataset used throughout a semester to assist in generalized learning and skill utilization. This tutorial will illustrate methods used to collect student data during the initial days of the semester or provide commonly available datasets that students see relevant. These datasets are then continually referred to throughout the semester to tie all measurement concepts together and make them relevant to the students. Finally, this tutorial will include numerous examples of ways to establish relevance and will provide examples of classroom measurements and evaluations as well as real-world examples. The presentation will be interactive with participants invited to ask questions as they arise. The emphasis will be on practical approaches for non-specialists.