Revolutionizing Assessment & Measurement

Assessments – just like learning experiences – shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all. We’re reimagining how learners’ social, cultural, and educational backgrounds can be integrated into their unique learning journeys. The individual is at the center of our research. We are spearheading the crucial transition from standardization to adaptive personalization in assessment, creating test designs and measurement methods that will empower individuals and organizations to grow and succeed in the world of tomorrow. By changing how students are supported through personalized assessments, we are optimizing individuals’ engagement and performance on assessments and promoting greater fairness and equity.

"Our team is driving innovation in personalized assessments that give individuals the opportunity to experience assessments under the conditions that are best suited for them to stay demonstrate their knowledge, skills, and abilities and to stay engaged throughout the assessment."

Jesse Sparks, ETS Research Institute

Learning technologies allow us to capture and evaluate learning in an ongoing way. Such assessment should maintain our unwavering commitment to the cornerstones of ETS assessments: Fairness, validity, reliability, and quality. We are reimagining the next generation digital learning and assessment which are performance-based, interactive assessments that are delivered in a natural environment, intentionally integrating technology and AI to capture a more accurate picture of a learner’s knowledge, skills, and behaviors. Through “test-free” interactive learning environments, we are optimizing AI and big process data to better understand, evaluate, and support the development of the complex skills of tomorrow and improve STEM and literacy abilities among all learners.

"Digital traces of learning exist everywhere. We should make sense of these to better support learners in context."

Ido Roll, ETS Research Institute

Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing the way people think, learn, and work. We’re focused on ensuring its use in assessment and education is done so responsibly, transparently, and equitably.  Artificial intelligence creates opportunities for advancing the science of measurement and assessment in significant ways and simultaneously creates challenges for the ethical, valid, and fair use of such data and methodologies. Leveraging our dynamic expertise in these spaces, we are forging the path and setting the standard ethical use of AI in assessment and education so that learners of all backgrounds have the same opportunity to demonstrate what they know and can do.

"There's no doubt that the use of AI in educational testing will continue to rise. The goal of our research, however, goes beyond just employing cutting-edge AI technology. It's about developing and utilizing AI methods to improve the quality of educational assessment, all while adhering to well-established educational measurement standards and defining new ones when needed."

Matt Johnson, ETS Research Institute

A historical convergence of change and transition is impacting the U.S. educational system: lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI), the end of affirmative action, and increasing teacher shortages. How can we meet these challenges and build a more equitable, accessible system for all?

We are creating the new statistical methodologies that will underpin and expand the reach of large-scale assessments, harnessing this powerful data to generate critical policy insights, powering global human progress, and promote educational equity worldwide.

We are lifting up one of our most critical resources - teachers - by diversifying the teaching pipeline and pathways to the classroom and supporting those already in the profession with AI-enabled feedback and development opportunities to enhance the practice of teaching.

We are driving post-secondary admissions toward policies that will enable the successful pursuit of institutional goals, while simultaneously matching students to choices that are best for their long-term productivity and well-being.

"In this era of rapid change and its profound impact on education, our team is engaging stakeholders and policy makers to understand what they need to help students and adult learners keep up. We are then using all our diverse skills to provide them with the needed data and approaches. It’s truly impactful research!"

Dan McCaffrey, ETS Research Institute