About BEAR
The Berkeley Evaluation and Assessment Research (BEAR) Center designs and delivers educational assessment instruments, performs research in assessment and psychometrics, and trains graduate students in these areas.
We collaborate with researchers in universities across the United States and abroad to develop software and other resources for constructing, managing, administering, and analyzing assessments.
Featured Projects
The core of our research is development and use of appropriate assessment methods for evaluating students, schools, educational policy, and the reform of educational evaluation away from the use of inappropriate standardized tests.
These are some examples of the projects that we are actively developing:
California Department of Education's Desired Results Developmental Profile (DRDP)
DRDP(2015) suite of assessments are now available for early implementation! The DRDP(2015) assessments are authentic observational assessment tools used throughout California to support the development for children from early infancy through kindergarten. For over 15 years, BEAR Center researchers collaboratively refined the tool to ensure that it is a valid and reliable measurement of development in early childhood. BEAR Center is responsible for the DRDPtech technology system.
Project Aspire - Defining and Assessing Mathematical Knowledge For Teaching Secondary Mathematics
The BEAR Center is collaborating with a team of mathematics education content experts at Arizona State University led by Pat Thompson on this NSF-funded project. The goal of Project Aspire is to develop an instrument that assesses secondary mathematics teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching secondary mathematics.
Assessing Data Modeling and Statistical Reasoning (ADM)
The ADM project aims to develop an assessment system to evaluate elementary and middle school students’ skills and understanding related to data modeling and statistical reasoning.
Our Software
In addition to our research in psychometrics, the BEAR Center is dedicated to the development of software that can facilitate the delivery and analysis of assessments, providing teachers with innovative and useful ways to assess students.
Recent Publications
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The latest volume of Measurement: Interdisciplinary Research and Perspectives (Volume 12, Issue 4, 2014) is now available
- This issue is explores the methodological disagreement concerning causal indicators, discussing wether they are inherently sensitive to interpretational confounding or not.
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Selected presentations by BEAR Center researchers:
News & Events
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The new DRDP(2015) - Released for Early Implementation!
The BEAR Center has concluded both pilot and field testing of the updated DRDP instruments! Through the state's management bulletin, the California Department of Education's Early Education & Support Division invited all EESD-funded programs to participate in the early implementation of the Desired Results Developmental Profile 2015 (DRDP(2015)). The suite of developmental observational assessments are valid and reliable for use with all children from early infancy to kindergarten entry.
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Psychometric Challenges in Measuring Visual Working Memory Capacity
Leah Feuerstahler, QME Postdoctoral Fellow
In experimental psychology, a subject's performance on computerized cognitive tasks is often used to measure a latent trait such as working memory capacity. Responses to these tasks are influenced by a variety of factors such as the variable of interest (i.e., working memory capacity), attentional lapses, and random guessing behavior. In this talk, I describe my experiences with modeling response behavior on a specific cognitive task.
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Behind the Scenes of the National Institute for Testing and Evaluation (NITE) in Israel
Tzur Karelitz, National Institute for Testing and Evaluation
This talk provides a broad overview of the various activities of a professional testing institute, NITE, where I have been working in the past 6 years. For more than 30 years, NITE has been responsible for the Psychometric Entrance Test (PET) to Israeli Universities, including its development, administration, scoring and reporting.
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Measuring What Counts: Developing Scales of Connectedness, Empowerment, and Meaning in the Non-Cognitive Domain
Brent Duckor, SJSU & Joshua Sussman, UC Berkeley
Across the fields of K-12 and postsecondary education, there is an increasing focus on developing the whole person and thus the impact of non-cognitive psychological factors on promoting students’ abilities to learn, be successful, and contribute to the larger society in meaningful ways.