Comira and Camber Present at Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology Conference

SAN MATEO, Calif. - April 4, 2016 - PRLog -- Comira and Camber will participate in a symposium, "Modeling Item Characteristics for Automatic Item Generation," as a part of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) Conference,which will be held April 14 - 16, 2016 in Anaheim, California. Stephen Gunter, Ph.D., Psychometrician, Industrial/Organizational Psychologist of Camber, will chair the symposium, on April 15, 2015.

Due to increased test item security concerns and the often wasteful item development-pilot test-revise-pilot test cycle, the need for a large bank of highly valid and reliable test items is a primary concern for large scale, high stakes testing. However, academics and practitioners in I/O psychology have been slow to adopt concepts and psychometric models related to automatic item generation. This symposium presents important research on modeling the psychometric characteristics of four different item types that I/O psychologists typically use and highlights the capability of generating these item types automatically.

Anne Thissen-Roe, Ph.D., Senior Psychometrician of Computer Assisted Testing Service, Inc. dba Comira, will be presenting with Session Chair, Stephen Gunter, Ph.D., Psychometrician, Industrial/Organizational Psychologist of Camber. During the coordinated session, "Automatic Response Option Sampling for Situational Judgment Items," they will discuss work to bring a limited form of assessment engineering, which they collaboratively call Automatic Response Option Sampling, to a kind of item called Situational Judgment Items, SJIs. SJIs, commonly used in employment testing to measure soft skills, problem solving and similar professional skills, simulate scenarios that employees often face on the job. SJIs include a set of possible responses to the scenario. Some responses reflect more effective problem-solving and better work performance than others. Often, the effectiveness of the solutions is context-specific. SJIs are not typical of the items handled by assessment engineering methods and tend to "misbehave" unless fit to more complex psychometric item models. However, Dr. Thissen-Roe and Dr. Gunter have designed a system by which one can manipulate only the response options in order to achieve the benefits of assessment engineering. This system is useful with SJIs.

About Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology http://www.siop.org

About Comira
Comira is a full service testing company for licensure, certification, assessment, and educational testing programs. Comira offers end-to-end examination services, including fixed and remote computer-based testing, test development and research, and construction of new test item types for a wide range of professions. The breadth of our experience working with regulatory agencies at the Federal, state, and national levels provides us with a full understanding of the rigorous requirements and challenges found in examination-based licensure and certification. With a dedicated team of professionals, approximately 500 testing centers, and technology to support even the most complex testing programs, Comira is one of the most trusted computer-based testing providers in the industry. Visit www.comiratesting.com

About Camber Corporation
Camber Corporation is a defense contractor headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama. Camber Corporation is a Cyber, Intelligence, and Unmanned Systems, Engineering, and Technology company. Camber has specialties in data collection and analysis, counter-narcotics analysis, geospatial intelligence, and counter-terrorism support and analysis. Camber Corporation has personnel onsite at 100 locations including countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa, delivering daily interface on technical, programmatic, and operations issues. Camber support aligns with the operational interests of every Joint combatant command; more than 150 Army, Air Force, and Navy programs; National Guard headquarters in every state and territory; and more than 25 North Atlantic Treaty Organization or coalition countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa.  Visit www.camber.com