He is currently the Norman O. Frederiksen Chair in Assessment Innovation at Educational Testing Service in Princeton, NJ.
His research and writing focus on bringing together advances in cognitive science, technology, and measurement to improve teaching and learning.
[1][2][3][4][5][6] Randy Bennett was elected President of both the International Association for Educational Assessment (IAEA), a worldwide organization primarily constituted of governmental and NGO measurement organizations, and the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME), whose members are employed in universities, testing organizations, state and federal education departments, and school districts.
Bennett is author or editor of nine books, as well as over 100 journal articles, chapters, and technical reports.
The 1998 publication, Reinventing Assessment: Speculations on the Future of Large-Scale Educational Testing,[7] presented a three-stage framework for how paper-and-pencil tests would gradually transition to digital form, eventually melding with online activities, blurring the distinction between learning and assessment, and leading to improvements in both pursuits.
A series of subsequent publications built upon the work of Robert Glaser, Norman O. Frederiksen, Samuel Messick, James Pellegrino, Lorrie Shepard and others to create a unified model for formative and summative assessments under the Cognitively Based Assessment of, for, and as Learning (CBAL) initiative.
[11] The latter publication articulated assumptions for the CBAL assessment model in a detailed "theory of action," which described the assessment system components, intended outcomes, and the action mechanisms that should lead to those outcomes, predating the generally recommended use of that device in operational testing programs.
[12] [13] The journal article, Formative Assessment: A Critical Review,[14] questioned the magnitude of efficacy claims, the meaningfulness of existing definitions, and the general absence of disciplinary considerations in the conceptualization and implementation of formative assessment.
[16][17] [18] Two reports--Online Assessment in Mathematics and Writing[19] and Problem Solving in Technology Rich Environments[20]--documented studies that helped set the stage for moving the US National Assessment of Educational Progress from paper presentation to computer delivery.
That theme was developed in a book chapter, Validity and Automated Scoring,[23] and summarized in The Changing Nature of Educational Assessment.
The commentary, The Good Side of COVID-19,[25] makes the case that standardized testing, and educational assessment more generally, must be rethought so that they better align with the multicultural, pluralistic society the US is rapidly becoming.
In a follow-up article, Toward a Theory of Socioculturally Responsive Assessment,[26] he assembles assessment design principles from multiple literatures and uses them to fashion a definition, theory, and suggested path for implementing measures more attuned to the social, cultural, and other relevant characteristics of diverse individuals and the contexts in which they live.
[28] Bennett articulates why personalized assessment is needed, what precedents exist for it in educational measurement, what it looks like in practice, and why we should worry about it.