Steven E. Stemler
- Media Contact
My chief concern is with the identification and maximization of human potential. I am deeply disturbed by the tremendous waste of talent that I see happening every day across a wide variety of contexts. I believe that assessment can play a critical role in helping us to scientifically identify and capitalize on individuals' strengths and compensate for their weaknesses at both an individual and group level. Consequently, some of my research focuses on new approaches to personnel selection/college admissions testing and grapples with issues related to the assessment of achievement, ability, and aptitude.
Schools are one place where people go to develop their abilities. Therefore, I spend a lot of time investigating the specific skills and abilities schools purport to value and develop. In my research I have found that there is a fundamental disconnect between the abilities schools claim to value and those that students are held accountable for by standardized tests. I believe that the problem is that we, as a field, have not yet developed adequate measures of these broader, non-cognitive constructs that tend to be highly valued by institutions and individuals (e.g., intercultural competence, creativity).
My program of research focuses on systematically investigating the purposes of school, from pre-kindergarten through higher education, and attempting to create better, more innovative new measures that are aligned with these broad purposes. Some of the measures being developed in my lab relate to the assessment of cultural competence, ethical reasoning, creativity (mental flexibility and adaptability), social intelligence, and practical intelligence.
Primary Interests:
- Ethics and Morality
- Interpersonal Processes
- Judgment and Decision Making
- Nonverbal Behavior
- Personality, Individual Differences
- Research Methods, Assessment
Research Group or Laboratory:
- Wesleyan Psychometric Laboratory
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A Brief History of the Purpose of School in the United States
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1:19 A Brief History of the Purpose of School in the United States
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2:04 On Teacher Evaluations
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0:41 On Defining Effective Teachers
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1:06 Steven Stemler: A 60-Second Introduction
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Books:
- Martin, M. O., Gregory, K. D., & Stemler, S. E. (Eds.). (2000). TIMSS 1999 Technical Report. Chestnut Hill, MA: Boston College.
- Stemler, S. E., & Bebell, D. (2012). The school mission statement: Values, goals, and identities in American education. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.
- Stemler, S.E., Bebell, D., Denzer-King, A., McCann, M., Yun, Y., Ireland, W., Tur-Kaspa, A., & Drake, A. (2017). Measuring creativity in the classroom. iBook available at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1187629186 Apple.
Journal Articles:
- Elliott, J. G., Stemler, S. E., Grigorenko, E. L., Sternberg, R. J., & Hoffman, N. (2011). The socially skilled teacher and the development of tacit knowledge. British Educational Research Journal, 37(1), 83-103.
- Kahn, R., Stemler, S. E., & Berchin-Weiss, J. (2009). Enhancing parent participation in early intervention through tools that support mediated learning. Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology, 8(3), 269-287.
- Matthew, C.T., & Stemler, S.E. (2013). Assessing mental flexibility with a new Word Recognition Test. Personality and Individual Differences, 55, 915-920.
- Stemler, S.E. (2017). College Admissions, the MIA Model, and MOOCs: Commentary on Niessen and Meijer (2017). Perspectives on Psychological Science, 12(3), 449-451.
- Stemler, S.E. (2012). What should university admissions test predict? Educational Psychologist, 47(1), 5-17.
- Stemler, S. E. (2004). A comparison of consensus, consistency, and measurement approaches to estimating interrater reliability. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 9(4).
- Stemler, S. E. (2001). An overview of content analysis. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 7(17).
- Stemler, S.E., Aggarwal, V., & Nithyanand, S. (2016). Knowing what NOT to do is a critical job skill: Evidence from 10 different scoring methods. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 23(3), 229-245.
- Stemler, S. E., Bebell, D., & Sonnabend, L. (2011). Using school mission statements for reflection and research. Educational Administration Quarterly, 47(2), 383-420.
- Stemler, S. E., Elliott, J. G., Grigorenko, E. G., & Sternberg, R. J. (2006). There’s more to teaching than instruction: Seven strategies for dealing with the practical side of teaching. Educational Studies, 32(1), 101-118.
- Stemler, S. E., Elliott, J., McNeish, D., Grigorenko, E. L., & Sternberg, R. J. (2012). Examining the construct and cross-cultural validity of the Teaching Excellence Rating Scale (TERS). The International Journal of Educational and Psychological Assessment, 9(2), 121-138.
- Stemler, S. E., Grigorenko, E. L., Jarvin, L., & Sternberg, R. J. (2006). Using the theory of successful intelligence as a basis for augmenting AP exams in psychology and statistics. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 31(3), 344-376.
- Stemler, S.E., Imada, T., & Sorkin, C. (2014). Development and validation of the Wesleyan Intercultural Competence Scale (WICS). Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, XXIV, 25-47.
- Stemler, S. E., Sternberg, R. J., Grigorenko, E. L., Jarvin, L., & Sharpes, K. (2009). Using the theory of successful intelligence as a framework for developing assessments in AP Physics. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 34, 195-209.
- Sternberg, R.J., Jarvin, L.J., Birney, D.P., Naples, A., Stemler, S.E., Newman, T., Otterbach, R., Parish, C., Randi, J., & Grigorenko, E.L. (2014). Testing the theory of successful intelligence through educational interventions in Grade 4 language arts, mathematics, and science. Journal of Educational Psychology, 106(3), 881-899
- Wu, M. B., & Stemler, S. E. (2008). Resident advisor general intelligence, emotional intelligence, personality dimensions, and internal belief characteristics as predictors of rated performance. Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, 45(4), 528-559.
Other Publications:
- Elliott, J. G., & Stemler, S. E. (2008). Teacher authority, tacit knowledge, and the training of teachers. In T. E. Scruggs and M. A. Mastropieri (Eds.), Advances in learning and behavioral disabilities: Vol. 21 Personnel Preparation (pp. 75-88). Oxford, UK: Elsevier.
- Mullis, I. V. S., & Stemler, S. E. (2002). Analyzing gender differences for high-achieving students on TIMSS. In D. F. Robitaille & A. E. Beaton (Eds.), Secondary Analysis of the TIMSS Data (pp. 277-290). New York: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
- Stemler, S., Chamvu, F., Chart, H., Jarvin, L., Jere, J., Hart, L., Kaani, B., Kalima, K., Kwiatkowski, J., Mambwe, A., Kasonde-N'Gandu, S., Newman, T., Serpell, R., Sparrow, S., Sternberg, R. J., & Grigorenko, E. L. (2009). Assessing competencies in reading and mathematics in Zambian children. In E. L. Grigorenko (Ed.), Multicultural Psychoeducational Assessment (pp. 157-186). New York: Springer Publishers.
- Stemler, S. E., & Sternberg, R. J. (2006). Using situational judgment tests to measure practical intelligence. In J. Weekley and R. E. Ployhart (Eds.), Situational Judgment Tests (pp. 107-131). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
- Stemler, S. E., & Tsai, J. (2008). Best practices in estimating interrater reliability. In J. Osborne (Ed.), Best practices in quantitative methods (pp. 29-49). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
- Sternberg, R. J., Grigorenko, E. L., Kidd, K. K., & Stemler, S. E. (2011). Intelligence, race, and genetics. In S. Krimsky and K. Sloan (Eds.), Race and the Genetic Revolution: Science, Myth, and Culture (pp. 195-237). New York: Columbia University Press.
- Sternberg, R. J., & Stemler, S. E. (2004). Wisdom as a moral virtue. In T. A. Thorkildsen and H. J. Walberg (Eds.), Nurturing morality (pp. 187-198). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.
- Stemler, S.E., & DePascale, M. (2016). Aligning Mission and Measurement. In A. A. Lipnevich, F. Preckel, R. D. Roberts (Eds.), Psychosocial skills and school systems (pp. 57-92). Springer.
- Stemler, S.E., (2015). Emerging trends in content analysis. In Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences (Eds.), Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons.
- Stemler, S.E., & Sternberg, R.J. (2013). The assessment of aptitude. In K.F. Geisinger (Ed.) The APA Handbook of Testing and Assessment in Psychology, Vol 3, (281-296). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Courses Taught:
- Advanced Seminar in Psychological Measurement
- Educational Psychology
- Foundations of Contemporary Psychology (Intro Psych)
- Psychological Measurement
- Psychological Statistics
- Psychology of Conflict Resolution
Steven E. Stemler
Department of Psychology
Wesleyan University
207 High Street
Middletown, Connecticut 06459
United States of America
- Phone: (860) 685-2207
- Fax: (860) 685-2761
