A Technical Advisory Group, comprised of experts from both language testing and psychometrics, provides feedback, advice and critical assessment.
- Ernie Anastasio
- Wayne J Camara
- Chris Carida
- Alan Davies
- John H.A.L. De Jong
- Shin-ichi Mayekawa
- Mark Reckase
- Wim van der Linden
Ernest J. Anastasio (2006 to date)
Ernest Anastasio directs the Graduate Management Admission Council® (GMAC®) component of the new Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE Academic), working in collaboration with colleagues from the Language Testing division of Pearson. His ancillary responsibilities at GMAC include membership on the PTE Academic Advisory Council, the GMAT® Technical Advisory Committee, and participation in policy setting for the GMAT testing program. Mr Anastasio has more than 40 years of research, development and management experience in high-stakes testing. Before joining the senior staff at GMAC, he was Chief Education Officer of Sylvan Ventures, a Baltimore, Maryland-based education venture capital company. During his tenure with Sylvan Ventures, he served as the senior education investment specialist in the acquisition, staffing and management of two major US distance learning universities – Walden University and National Technological University. Prior to his position at Sylvan Ventures, Mr. Anastasio served for a period of five years as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Educational Testing Service (ETS). Earlier in his 33 year career at ETS, Anastasio held the positions of Vice President, Research, Vice President, Information Systems and Technology and Senior Vice President, International Development. From the period 1992-98, Mr. Anastasio managed and directed the transition of the GRE, TOEFL and GMAT testing programs from paper-pencil format to computerized-adaptive testing. Mr Anastasio holds graduate degrees in Quantitative Measurement and Psychology from Texas Christian University and Advanced Management from Harvard Graduate School of Business.
Wayne J Camara (2009 to date)
Dr. Wayne J. Camara is the Vice President for Research and Development at The College Board. He is responsible for monitoring, coordinating and conducting all research and product development associated with the range of College Board assessments, services, and programs including the SAT, Advance Placement, Computer-placement tests, and policy research. He oversees and directs research and development projects conducted on behalf of the College Board by staff at ETS and externally. He serves on several other external technical advisory groups such as the US Defense Advisory Committee and the Pennsylvania Technical Advisory Committee that oversees the state's testing programs in schools. He was also project director of the revision of the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. He is currently president of the National Council on Measurement in Education, a member of several technical advisory committees for state and certification assessments, and a fellow of the American Psychological Association.
Chris Caridia (2006 - 09)
Chris Caridia is a freelance consultant, working on market research, teaching materials and project management. Chris began his career as an English teacher in Italy, Sweden and Germany. He later moved into ELT publishing and was for many years Publishing Manager of Cornelsen & Oxford University Press, during which time he managed a very rapid expansion of the list, in particular in the area of vocational and business English. In recent years he has been responsible for developing a wide range of central exam practice materials for German schools. He serves on the Committee of the Business English Special Interest Group (BESIG) of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL).
Alan Davies (2007 to date)
Professor Dr. Alan Davies has a first-class degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Oxford, a Diploma in General Linguistics from the University of Edinburgh and a PhD from the University of Birmingham, where he developed the English Proficiency Test Battery on behalf of the British Council. In 1964 he was appointed to the University of Edinburgh where he is now Emeritus Professor of Applied Linguistics. He has taught English and Applied Linguistics in the UK, Kenya, Nepal and Hong Kong and in the 1990s spent five years at the University of Melbourne as Director of its Language Testing Research Center. He has served as President of the British Association of Applied Linguistics, Secretary-General of AILA and President of the International Language Testing Association, which awarded him its first Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003. He has also acted as editor of the journals Applied Linguistics and Language Testing. His publications include: Language Testing Symposium (editor, Oxford University Press, 1968), Testing and Experimental Methods (joint editor, Oxford University Press, 1977), Principles of Language Testing (Blackwell, 1990), Introduction to Applied Linguistics (Edinburgh University Press, 1999, 2nd edition 2007), The Native Speaker: myth and reality (Multilingual Matters, 2003), A Handbook of Applied Linguistics (joint editor, Blackwell, 2004), A Glossary of Applied Linguistics (Edinburgh University Press and Erlbaum, 2005), Assessing Academic English: testing English proficiency 1950-1989 (Cambridge University Press and Cambridge ESOL, 2008). In 2006 he was awarded a Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship for a study entitled Native Speakers and Native Users.
John H.A.L. De Jong (2006 to date)
Professor Dr. John H.A.L De Jong is Vice President, Test Development at the Language Testing division of Pearson and Professor of Language Testing at the Amsterdam VU University. He has more than 30 years experience in language testing. John graduated in General Linguistics, French and English languages from Leiden University and obtained a PhD in Educational Measurement from Twente University. He has published numerous articles and books on language acquisition and assessment and on educational measurement. He has specialized in empirical scaling of language proficiency and promotes the development of internationally standardised reporting scales of language proficiency. He was involved from the start in developing the Common European Framework for Languages. After teaching French for seven years John continued his career at CITO, the Dutch National Institute for Educational Management. In 2000 he set up a company, Language Testing Services (LTS), to provide advice and services in the areas of language curriculum development, language testing and assessment in general to national and international educational authorities, educational institutions and international business corporations. Among his clients were several national ministries of education, the World Bank, the OECD and the European Union. He joined the Language Testing division of Pearson in September 2006.
Shin-ichi Mayekawa (2008 to date)
Professor Dr. Shin-ichi Mayekawa is professor in the Department of Human System Science of the Graduate School of Decision Science and Technology at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. His areas of expertise are psychometrics and Statistical science. He studies theoretical and applied test theory and item response theory. He has published on a range of subjects such as maximum likelihood and Bayesian estimation, an algorithm for feed-forward neural network regression analysis, standardization in large scale examinations, and listening comprehension of English as a foreign language. After receiving a masters degree in the faculty of letters of the University of Tokyo he studied at the University of Iowa and obtained a PhD in Educational Measurement and Statistics. Before joining the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Dr. Mayekawa held a professorship at the Japanese National Center for University Entrance Examinations.
Mark Reckase (2006 to date)
Professor Dr. Mark Reckase is a professor of measurement and quantitative methods. He specializes in the development of educational and psychological tests, educational policy related to testing, and the psychometric theory that supports the assessment of cognitive skills and content knowledge. In particular, he studies applications of unidimensional and multidimensional item response theory (IRT) models, computerized-adaptive testing (CAT), assessment using performance tasks, standard setting on educational tests, and methods for evaluating the quality of teacher education programs. His areas of expertise are: Quantitative research methods, Measurement & testing, Standard setting, Assessment, Psychometric theory, Item response & Rasch modelling, Instrument development, Structural equation modelling, Large-scale standardized testing.
Wim van der Linden (2006 - 08)
Professor Dr. Wim van der Linden is Chief Research Scientist at CTB/McGraw-Hill, Monterey, CA, USA. Before joining CTB/McGraw-Hill in 2008, he was Professor of Measurement and Data Analysis, Faculty of Behavioral Sciences, University of Twente. Wim holds degrees in Psychology and Mathematical Sociology from the Universities of Utrecht and Amsterdam. His research interests include test theory, computerized-adaptive testing, large-scale educational assessments, optimal test assembly, and decision theory and its application to problems of educational decision making. His publications have appeared in all major international journals. He is co-editor of two recently published volumes: Handbook of Modern Item Response Theory (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1997; with R. K. Hambleton) and Computerized Adaptive Testing: Theory and Applications (Boston: Kluwer, 2001; with C. A. W. Glas), Linear Models for Optimal Test Design (New York: Springer-Verlag, 2005)and Introduction to Test Theory and its Applications, both for Springer-Verlag. He is a former President of the Psychometric Society and Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, CA, in 2002-2003.