Manager
Dr. Laura Ford received her Ph.D. from the University of Louisville in Experimental Psychology (specializing in Human Factors Engineering). She has almost 20 years of experience in educational assessment, task and job analyses, performance measurement, training evaluation, training development, experimental design, data analysis, database management, and technical writing. She has more than 10 years of experience designing and conducting job analyses, training development projects, and special studies for the U.S. Army. Currently, Dr. Ford is involved in both large scale assessment work and Army research projects. She has done scaling and equating (applying Item Response Theory), item statistics (classical statistics) and vertical scaling studies for the Florida (FCAT) and Kentucky (KCCT) Departments of Education.
Other education-related work includes leading the quality assurance of Minnesota’s Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) and Annual Measurable Achievement Objectives (AMAO) calculations; and data analyses for the Kentucky Department of Education to (a) relate students’ demographic information to current and past KCCT scores and (b) compare Kentucky’s accountability system criteria with NLCB’s Adequate Yearly Progress criteria. In addition, Dr. Ford served as the project director for an evaluation of the U.S. Army’s adult basic skills computer-based training program. Her background includes extensive experience with SAS, Microsoft Excel, Multilog, and Microsoft Access for statistical analysis, database design, experimental design, and project management.