James Algina, Ph.D.
Professor of Educational Psychology
College of Education
2001 Awardee
James Algina’s research focuses on improving educational research and assessment by enhancing the effectiveness of research methods used in these areas. His goal is to improve the utility of research throughout the field of education.Currently, Algina is studying the use of value-added methodology in the comparison of schools, outlining a program of measurement research for the State of Florida to understand the reliability and validity of the value-added methods proposed for comparing schools. Given the new policy of allocating school funding based on student performance on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT), Algina’s research is now more important than ever.
Algina’s other interests include the analysis of longitudinal treatment comparisons with data that contain missing values. Although these methods are used in a large number of research areas – including educational, medical and mental health research – little is known about their comparative efficacy.
Algina is also developing methods to select sample sizes that will permit accurate estimation in correlational research and developing data analysis methodology for use in experiments that compare treatments delivered to groups of people to treatments delivered to individuals.
Algina’s research has been published widely in first-tier journals in the United States and Britain. He has published more than 85 refereed articles, 30 of which appeared in the last five years. His book (co-authored with Linda Crocker), Introduction to Classical and Modern Test Theory, is the most widely used textbook in doctoral-level theory courses on educational measurement. Algina has been editor of the Journal of Educational Measurement and co-editor of the American Educational Research Journal. He also serves on the editorial boards for Contemporary Educational Psychology, Educational and Psychological Measurement, Journal of Educational Measurement, Journal of Experimental Education and Psychological Methods.