Dr. Shear's primary research interests address topics in psychometrics and applied statistics in educational research and assessment. His areas of expertise include validity theory, differential item functioning, diagnostic classification models, and categorical data analysis techniques. His work aims to inform our perspectives about test score meaning and use for research and accountability purposes, and to help answer questions such as, “what do test scores measure, and how do we know?” His work addresses these questions by developing and applying statistical models that can generate more useful test scores and make better use of existing large-scale assessment data. An example of the former is applying diagnostic classification models to improve the use of tests for formative purposes, while an example of the latter is the development of new ways to use ordered probit models in the analysis of large-scale state accountability testing data.
