Sanford R. Student

Assistant Professor

Dr. Sanford R. Student is an assistant professor specializing in measurement, psychometrics and quantitative methods in the School of Education at the University of Delaware. He is also a Resident Faculty member of the Data Science Institute.

His research spans a variety of areas, united by his interest in connecting technical aspects of educational and psychological measurement such as instrument design and psychometric modeling with their practical implications for students, teachers and downstream researchers. Dr. Student’s recent methodological research deals primarily with issues related to the measurement of students’ academic growth, including the psychometric properties of assessments designed to measure growth and the implications for research and practice when those properties differ across assessments. He also conducts both methodological and applied research in large-scale science assessment, and has worked with states, districts and assessment developers on a variety of applied projects. 

Dr. Student’s work has been published in Educational Researcher, Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, and the Chinese-English Journal of Educational Measurement and Evaluation. He is an active member of the National Council on Measurement in Education.

Educational Background

• Ph.D., Research and Evaluation Methodology, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, 2022
• B.A., Philosophy, Brown University, Providence, RI, 2013
• B.A., Computer Science, Brown University, Providence, RI, 2013

Professional Experience

• Assistant Professor, School of Education, University of Delaware, 2023-present
• Teaching Assistant, School of Education, University of Colorado Boulder, 2019
• Doctoral Researcher, Center for Assessment Design, Research and Evaluation, 2018-2023
• Research Associate, Lyons Assessment Consulting, 2021-2023
• Lead Researcher, Commission on the Future of Legal Education Bar Exam study- American Bar Association, 2019-2020
• Software Engineer, edX, 2016-2018
• Teaching Assistant, Brown University, 2011

Recent Professional Awards

• Selected attendee, AIR/NCES Winter 2020 NAEP Data Training Workshop, Arlington, VA, 2020