André A. Rupp 1230A Benjamin Building University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 ruppandr@umd.edu (301) 405-3623 Voice (301) 314-9245 Fax

Handout package for DCM workshop (28-29 May 2009)

Handout for DCM symposium (AERA 2009)

Curriculum Vitae (pdf file)

A few words about my career path…

In what feels almost like another lifetime at this point, I initially studied to become a secondary school teacher for English, French, and Mathematics at the University of Hamburg in my hometown of Hamburg, Germany. Through completing my Master’s work in Teaching English as a Second Language / Applied Linguistics and Mathematics / Statistics in the U.S. as well as my Ph.D. work in Measurement, Evaluation, and Research Methodology in Canada, I got lured more deeply into the beauty of academic research and graduate-level teaching. I started my academic career at the bilingual University of Ottawa in Canada followed by a two-year visiting professorship at the Institute for Educational Progress in Berlin, Germany, where I worked in an interdisciplinary team on developing national standards-based assessments for English as a first foreign language.

These experiences significantly expanded my understanding of and expertise in working at the interdisciplinary intersection of modern measurement, assessment development, and policy-making. I am expanding my growing expertise through current interdisciplinary grant work where I continue to gain a high level of appreciation for the complexities of decision-making driven by differential evidentiary belief- and reasoning-systems of diverse experts. In my current position here at the EDMS department I utilize my experience and expertise to integrate rigorous statistical inquires of modern measurement models with principled assessment design in complex learning environments.

A few words about my primary research areas of interest….

My synthesis-oriented work frequently circumscribes, deconstructs, and re-arranges the current state-of-the-art of methodological research and practice at the intersection of educational and psychological measurement, applied cognitive psychology, and the learning sciences. My current research interests center around cognitively-grounded assessment approaches and associated statistical models, which broadly fall under the umbrella terms diagnostic measurement / cognitively diagnostic assessment and diagnostic classification models (DCMs) / cognitive diagnosis models. I have recently co-authored a book on this topic with two colleagues of mine in the field, Jonathan Templin and Robert Henson, which has received rather positive reviews from colleagues and practitioners so far. I have also co-developed a workshop on this topic with my co-authors, which I held in May 2009 at the University of Maryland for the first time and am generally interested in presenting upon request, both nationally and internationally.

A few words about two specific research strands and grants…

I am currently involved in two related research strands in the area of diagnostic measurement. In the first strand, my work centers around developing principled diagnostic assessment approaches for modeling learning progressions of complex skill sets in games- and simulation-based learning environments. That is, I am working on exploring how DCMs can be used alongside different non-parametric or semi-parametric methods such as epistemic network analysis to generate reliable multivariate response profiles for learners in games- and simulation-based assessment environments. To this end, I am a Co-PI on the NSF-funded research grants entitled AutoMentor: Virtual Mentoring and Assessment in Computer Games for STEM Learning and Dynamic STEM Assessment through Epistemic Network Analysis, which I am working on in collaboration with the interdisciplinary Epistemic Games Group at the University of Wisconsin at Madison led by PI David Williamson Shaffer (www.epistemicgames.org).

The second research strand concerns describing and investigating the theoretical potential and practical limitations of DCMs and related modern multivariate measurement models more generally. With several graduate students here at EDMS and a former graduate student in Germany I am currently investigating robustness properties of DCMs with respect to model misspecification. It is our intention that this line of research, in conjunction with the work of other colleagues in this area, will contribute to the creation of comprehensible reliable guidelines for DCMs that are meaningful to practitioners from diverse disciplines.

A few words about great colleagues…

I have been very fortunate to work with a variety of wonderful mentors, graduate students and colleagues from different disciplines in my life and feel like I never stop learning when I am in their company. So my special thanks for inspiration, engagement, and laughter explicitly goes out to the following people (in alphabetical order) but it also goes out implicitly to many unmentioned others who I have met over my career so far…

-  Jimmy de la Torre, Rutgers the State University of New Jersey
-  Andreas Frey, Leibniz Institute for Science Education
-  Nicholas Gazzola, University of Ottawa
-  Jim Gee, Arizona State University
-  Joanna Gorin, Arizona State University
-  William Grabe, Northern Arizona University
-  Johannes Hartig, Universität von Erfurt
-  Claudia Harsch, University of Warwick
-  Robert Henson, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
-  Kristen Huff, The College Board
-  Joan Jamieson, Northern Arizona University
-  Michel Knigge, Research Data Center at the Institute for Educational Progress
-  Danny Laveault, University of Ottawa
-  Nonie Lesaux, Harvard Graduate School of Education
-  Roy Levy, Arizona State University
-  Nathalie Loye, Université de Montréal
-  Hans Anand Pant, Institut für Schulqualität der Länder Berlin und Brandenburg e.V.
-  David Williamson Shaffer, University of Madison at Wisconsin
-  Marielle Simon, University of Ottawa
-  Valerie Shute, Florida State University
-  Laura Stapleton, University of Maryland Baltimore County
-  Jonathan Templin, University of Georgia at Athens
-  Miriam Vock, Institute for Educational Progress
-  Oliver Wilhelm, Humboldt University
-  Bruno Zumbo, University of British Columbia
-  my wonderful graduate students from the past and present, and, of course,
-  my current colleagues here at EDMS!

And then there is the personal stuff…   

It might interest you to learn that I have been an avid ballroom, swing, and Latin dancer in my life and am currently particularly fond of West Coast Swing dancing in the D.C. area (http://www.dancejamproductions.com/cherryhill/) - I am always up for dancing the night away! Another love of mine is concerts, theatre, and stand-up, especially when these shows are professionally produced. I have seen a lot of great acts as diverse as Andrea Bocelli, Sarah Brightman, The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Matchbox 20, The Eagles, Bryan Adams, The Pet Shop Boys, K.D. Lang, Amy Grant, George Strait, The Dixie Chicks, Robin Williams, Chris Rock, Margaret Cho, John Oliver and many others. As you can imagine, I am quite happy to live not only in D.C. but so close to Broadway in NYC, where I recently saw God of Carnage and am looking forward to seeing Oleanna and A Steady Rain this fall (http://www.broadway.com/)!

When I am not dancing away or am sitting in a venue with hundreds or thousands of other people, I relax to watch American T.V. shows which I have loved since I was a kid. Anything from House M.D., Lie to Me, The Mentalist, Without a Trace (while it was still on), the CSI franchise, Psych, Burn Notice, Royal Pains, The Big Bang Theory, Frasier (when it was still on), The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, or the Colbert Report are great! Finally, I have a wonderful little boy named Jean-Marie who lives with his mother in Montreal, Canada, and whom I get to visit every few months when I am not doing all of the wonderful things above. He is a great excuse to visit the lovely city of Montréal and to enjoy some French-Canadian hospitality and food!

Contact Information…

If you have any questions about my research, would like to request an electronic copy of a paper of mine, or want to simply brainstorm ideas with a fellow professional, please do not hesitate to contact me! E-mail is always best and I will get back to you as soon as I can! I am looking forward to hearing from you!