Dr. Randy Bennett received his doctoral degree from Columbia University - Teachers College in 1979 in the field of education, specializing in special education and learning disabilities. His working history spans over four decades, primarily with the Educational Testing Service, where he has held various positions ranging from Research Fellow to the Norman O. Frederiksen Chair in Assessment Innovation. Additionally, Dr. Bennett served as an adjunct lecturer, clinical instructor, and educational diagnostician at Columbia University - Teachers College, and as an educational diagnostician and teacher for the Board of Education in New York City.Dr. Bennett’s accomplishments are well recognized, including election to the National Academy of Education and as AERA fellow. He also served as President of NCME and International Association for Educational Assessment, and was presented the ETS Career Achievement Award, AERA’s E.F. Lindquist Award, and NCME’s Bradley Hanson Award for Contributions to Educational Measurement.Dr. Bennett’s Contributions to Cognition and AssessmentDr. Bennett’s research portfolio has multidisciplinary depth—he has applied cognitive science to assessment research in multiple domains, including mathematics, science, and English Language Arts. His work acknowledges the importance of all stages of the assessment development process, from theoretical foundations to task design, delivery, scoring, analysis, validation, and reporting. He has led pioneering work at ETS to develop technology-enhanced assessments that are grounded in theories and data on human learning, all with the goal of supporting educational practice.For example, Dr. Bennett served as the major architect and visionary for the Cognitively Based Assessment of, for, and as Learning (CBAL) project, which is a unified model for formative and summative assessments in K-12 reading, writing, and mathematics, together with professional support for teachers. His more recent work on socioculturally responsive assessment extends the work of CBAL by considering the wider social and cultural context in which cognition and assessment is situated.
2023 Outstanding Contribution to Practice in Cognition and Assessment
Dr. Bor-Chen Kuo, National Taichung University of Education
2022 Outstanding Dissertation in Cognition and Assessment
Dr. Yanan Feng, Indiana University - Bloomington
2020 Outstanding Contribution to Practice in Cognition and Assessment
Dr. Russell Almond, Flordia State University
2019 Outstanding Dissertation in Cognition and Assessment
Dr. Matthew Madison, University of Georgia
2015 Outstanding Contribution to Research in Cognition and Assessment
Dr. Jonathan Templin, Kansas University (Winner)Dr. Janice Gobert, Worcester Polytechic Institute (Honorable Mention)Dr. Russell Almond, Flordia State University (Honorable Mention) 2014 Outstanding Contribution to Practice in Cognition and Assessment
A multi-team award given to 12 researchers from Achieve, ETS, and PearsonAchieve: Drs. Enis Dogan, Bonnie Hain, and Carrie Piper ETS: Drs. Nancy Glazer, Joanna Gorin, Jeff haberstroh, Patricia Klag, Stephen Lazer, and Kathleen SheehanPearson: Steve Ferrara, Jay Larkin, and Paul Nichols 2013 Outstanding Dissertation in Cognition and Assessment
Dr. Laine Bradshaw, University of Georgia Dr. Anna Crowe, University of Cape Town, South Africa 2011 Outstanding Contribution to Research in Cognition and Assessment
Dr. Susan Embretson, Georgia Institute of Technology 2010 Outstanding Dissertation in Cognition and Assessment
Dr. Chanho Park, ACT.