Dr. Jamal Abedi is professor at the School of Education of the University of California at Davis and a research partner at the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST).
Abedi's research interests include studies in the area of psychometrics in testing and scales development. His recent works include studies on the validity of assessments, accommodations and classifications for English language learners (ELLs) and students with disabilities, issues concerning comparability of alternative assessments for students with significant cognitive disabilities, opportunity to learn for ELLs, and measurement of creativity.
 |
1. Assessment for English Language Learners: Issues, Trends, and Policy Implications
"It is a great honor to be here with you and to discuss issues concerning English Language Learners. As you know these issues are extremely important for many reasons." |
 |
2. English Language Learners Classification in Context
"Correlations between English Language Learner classifications and English Language Proficiency should be a perfect correlation. This is what we expect, but let's look at the facts." |
 |
3. English Language Learners and Standardized Testing
"State tests are used for accountability purposes, for No Child Left Behind... High stakes decisions are based on these assessments. It [Achieving content validity] is almost like flipping a coin; 50%, that's exactly what it is." |
 |
4. English Language Learners and High Stakes Testing
"For all test takers, any test that employs language is, in part, a measure of their language skills. This is of particular concern for test takers whose first language is not the language of the test." |
 |
5. Accommodations for English Language Learners
"...Unfortunately, for English Language Learner students accommodations that have been developed for students with disabilities are used for these kids, with no point, just for the sake of using some accommodation." |
 |
6. Impact of English Language Learner Research on Policy and Practice
"...If you want to help ELL students to reduce the performance gap, just make sure that you are trying to reduce and eliminate extraneous factors that really affect performance without being related to the content assessment." |
 |
7. Recommendations for Assessment of English Language Learners
"Formative assessments play an extremely important role...conduct formative assessments to inform instruction because once you have the results for summative assessments... it's too late." |