My research advances a justice-oriented reconceptualization of assessment by integrating validity theory, sociocognitive models of writing and reading, and socioculturally responsive design frameworks. Across this work, I reposition validity as a question of equity and consequence in literacy, language, and AI-mediated contexts.
I study what it means to treat justice as central to validation rather than as an afterthought. This includes work on ethical writing assessment, consequential validity, justice-oriented and antiracist validation, and the relationship between validity arguments and human dignity.
Writers now compose across platforms, media, and tools that change what counts as expertise. I examine how assessments can better represent that complexity without collapsing into narrow or reductive models of performance.
My work on the Integrated Design and Appraisal Framework brings together construct representation, theory of action, validity, and consequences of use. The aim is to design assessments that are intellectually rigorous while remaining accountable for what they do in the world.
I work with teacher educators, professional organisations, and policy partners to rethink how assessment systems shape instruction, opportunity, and public trust. This includes research on large-scale testing, school-based assessment, and teacher learning.
Justice-Oriented Literacy Assessment for a Digital and AI-Mediated World is the umbrella program that currently organises much of my work. It builds on earlier research on the social consequences of assessment and extends that work into questions of digital communication, AI-enabled feedback, and culturally responsive assessment design.
The work begins from a simple concern: too many literacy assessments still rest on narrow, standardised models of writing even as students and workers are asked to communicate across linguistic, cultural, and technological boundaries.
When assessments fail to represent that complexity, they do more than mismeasure performance. They distort teaching, restrict opportunity, and reproduce injustice.
I am extending work on a scenario-based digital formative assessment platform that offers feedback across multiple domains of writing expertise, including emerging work on AI-enabled feedback and the validity arguments needed to support its responsible use.
Working with collaborators, I am exploring how large language models can help analyse international writing assessment data in ways that reveal linguistic, cultural, and substantive patterns shaping performance and scoring.
I am advancing work on culturally sustaining and justice-oriented assessment frameworks that connect ethical design, sociocognitive models of writing, and public accountability across local and international contexts.
A visual overview of the concepts shaping this work.
Writing assessment shapes access, opportunity, and thriving. Its consequences are lived by real people, not abstract populations, so assessment design must begin with the people whose lives it affects.
Conventional writing assessment often assumes a stable path from task to score to inference. That logic breaks down when writing is treated as uniform across contexts, cultures, and purposes.
Assessment quality cannot be judged by technical performance alone. Validity must also account for fairness, justice, ethics, and the consequences assessments produce for different populations.
Writing performance is interpreted through linguistic, cultural, and substantive patterns. These patterns shape what is seen as evidence and must be examined before claims about writers are treated as justified.
Differences in performance may reflect discourse traditions, unequal access to dominant language practices, or contextual knowledge rather than differences in writing ability alone. Good assessment makes those possibilities visible.
Justice has to be built into assessment design, validation, and use—not appended after the fact. My research develops frameworks that connect construct articulation, consequence, and rights-holder-centered design in order to create more accountable assessment systems.
Across projects, I return to the same design commitments: assessments should represent meaningful forms of literacy; they should be valid, fair, ethical, and just; they should remain accountable for their consequences; and they should support learning rather than narrow it.