Psychometrics: From practice to theory and back

The paper surveys 15 years of progress in three psychometric research areas: latent dimensionality structure, test fairness, and skills diagnosis of educational tests. It is proposed that one effective model for selecting and carrying out research is to chose one's research questions from practical challenges facing educational testing, then bring to bear sophisticated probability modeling and statistical analyses to solve these questions, and finally to make effectiveness of the research answers in meeting the educational testing challenges be the ultimate criterion for judging the value of the research. The problem-solving power and the joy of working with a dedicated, focused, and collegial group of colleagues is emphasized. Finally, it is suggested that the summative assessment testing paradigm that has driven test measurement research for over half a century is giving way to a new paradigm that in addition embraces skills level formative assessment, opening up a plethora of challenging, exciting, and societally important research problems for psychometricians.