About our authors
Susan M. Brookhart, Ph.D., is Professor Emerita in the School of Education at Duquesne University and an independent educational consultant and author based in Helena, Montana.
Dr. Brookhart was the 2007-2009 Editor of Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, and is currently an Associate Editor of Applied Measurement in Education. She is author or co-author of seventeen books and over 70 articles and book chapters on classroom assessment, teacher professional development, and evaluation, including (with Anthony J. Nitko) Assessment and Grading in Classrooms, Grading, How to Give Effective Feedback to Your Students, How to Create and Use Rubrics for Formative Assessment and Grading, and (with Connie M. Moss) Learning Targets: Helping Students Aim for Understanding in Today's Lesson. She serves on the editorial boards of several journals and on several national advisory panels. She has been named the 2014 Jason Millman Scholar by the Consortium for Research on Educational Assessment and Teaching Effectiveness (CREATE) and is the recipient of the 2015 Samuel J. Messick Memorial Lecture Award from Educational Testing Service/TOEFL.
Dr. Brookhart's research interests include the role of both formative and summative classroom assessment in student motivation and achievement, the connection between classroom assessment and large-scale assessment, and grading. Dr. Brookhart also works with schools, districts, regional educational service units, universities, and states doing professional development. Dr. Brookhart received her Ph.D. in Educational Research and Evaluation from The Ohio State University, after teaching in both elementary and middle schools. She was a full-time faculty member at Duquesne University from 1989 through 2003, most recently as Professor and Chair of the Department of Educational Foundations and Leadership.
Anthony J. Nitko is a private consultant in educational measurement and Professor Emeritus and former Chairperson of the Department of Psychology in Education at the University of Pittsburgh. He is a University Associate, Department of Educational Psychology, at the University of Arizona. His research interests include curriculum-based criterion-referenced testing, integrating testing and instruction, classroom assessment, and the assessment of knowledge and higher order thinking skills.
Professor Nitko is coauthor (with Susan Brookhart) of Educational Assessment of Students. He is author of the chapter, "Designing Tests That Are Integrated With Instruction" in the Third Edition of Educational Measurement, and co-author (with Susan Brookhart) of Assessment and Grading in Classrooms (2008). He co-authored (with Susan Brookhart) the chapter, "Strategies for constructing assessments of higher order thinking skills" (2011). He also co-authored (with C.M. Lindvall) Measuring Pupil Achievement and Aptitude, (with T-C Hsu) Pitt Educational Testing Aids (PETA) (a package of computer programs for classroom teachers), and (with R. Glaser) the chapter "Measurement in Learning and Instruction" in the Second Edition of Educational Measurement.
Professor Nitko has been Editor of the journal Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, and later served as the International News Editor of this journal. He was also Editor of d'News, the AERA Division D newsletter. Some of the journals in which his research has appeared include American Educational Research Journal, Applied Measurement in Education, Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy, & Practice, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, Educational Technology, Journal of Educational Measurement, and Research in Developmental Disabilities.
Professor Nitko is a member of several professional organizations, was elected as Fellow to the American Psychological Association, served on several committees of the American Educational Research Association, elected Secretary of AERA Division D, served on committees of the National Council on Measurement in Education, and was elected to the Board of Directors and as President of the latter. Professor Nitko received Fulbright awards to Malawi and to Barbados. He has served as a consultant to various government and private agencies in Bangladesh, Barbados, Botswana, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Jamaica, Jordan, Liberia, Malawi, Namibia, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, United States, Vietnam, and Yemen.
