Testing, Measurement and Psychometrics Consultant
Independent
Dr. Melican is an independent consultant in testing, measurement and psychometrics. He previously worked at Dallas Independent School District, Educational Testing Service, the American Institute for Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), and the College Board. He has extensive research and practical experience in all aspects of assessment from initial conceptualization to score reporting and analyses. His major areas include validity, reliability, standard setting, equating, and standard setting.
As Chief Psychometrician at College Board he provided consultation to Research, Psychometric, Test Development, Program Direction, and Operations staff members for all College Board testing programs including SAT Reasoning, AP, and Accuplacer. Accuplacer is a computer-adaptive test for course placement used by community and four-year colleges. Tasks included developing and reviewing research projects and developing psychometrics plans, generating quality control procedures and providing communications with clients and vendors.
As Director of Content and Psychometrics at the AICPA Dr. Melican led the research, psychometric, quality control and content efforts to develop the computer-based Uniform CPA Examination. The computer-based CPA Examination contains innovative case studies and uses a Computer Assisted Sequential Testlet algorithm.
During 19 years at ETS, he led the statistical teams for a variety of programs including the Graduate Record Exam (GRE), Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT), Praxis, SAT and PSAT/NMSQT. His teams were responsible for the statistical and quality control aspects of each testing program including item analyses, equating, and validity research. The PRAXIS examination program is part of teacher licensure process and during his tenure the Praxis transitioned from a paper-based to a computer-adaptive testing program. He was on the Board of Review for 12 years. The Board of Review is responsible for reviewing information concerning any test taker of group of test takers with aberrant score results and making recommendation for next steps concerning release of their scores.
At the Dallas Independent School District he was a Principal Evaluator working with K-8 school teachers to develop end of year tests to provide information to both the current teacher and the teacher in the next grade.
As a consultant Dr. Melican has been on Technical Advisory Committees for the Department of Defense for the ASVAB and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and serves on the Board of Editors for the journal, Applied Measurement in Education.