Role Responsibilities

The Ministry of Education and Childcare has an exciting opportunity for you to join our team as Senior Psychometrician!

Provincial Assessment sector (PAS) delivers and administers early years literacy and numeracy screeners, Provincial Achievement Tests (PATs), diploma examinations, and Canadian Adult Education Credential (CAEC) assessments. As part of the analytics unit, the Psychometrician reports to the Senior Manager, Scoring and Reporting.

Responsibilities:

• Participates in the scoring and reporting for early years screeners (EYS), Provincial Achievement Tests (PATs), diploma examinations, and Canadian Adult Education Credential (CAEC) assessments.
• Receives and responds to the field's various inquiries including POPA requests associated with the provincial assessment scoring, reporting, and interpretations.
• Maintains a comprehensive understanding of the sector's data held in Ministry files to effectively deal with stakeholder information requirements and requests.
• Conceives, designs, and produces secondary analysis reports and/or cutting-edge graphs (e.g., multi-year roll-up, prior level of achievement, diploma exam completion rates) at various levels using PAT and diploma examination assessment data.
• Initiates and provides ad hoc reporting services as well as information/data requests from the sector, the Assistant Deputy Minister (ADM) and department, and from stakeholders, school authorities, schools, parents, students, and members of the public.
• Collaborates with the sector's Assessment Specialists/Diploma Exam Leads to develop and monitor the implementation of sound, consistent, and feasible scoring and reporting business rules (e.g., third-read identification rules) for provincial assessments and screeners.
• Collaborates with the System Assurance Branch and the Provincial Approach to Student Information (PASI) team and provides leadership and psychometric expertise in assurance and public reporting.

Please click on this link to view the job description for this position.

APS Competencies

Competencies are behaviors that are essential to reach our goals in serving Albertans. We encourage you to have an in depth understanding of the competencies that are required for this opportunity and to be prepared to demonstrate them during the recruitment process.

This link will assist you with understanding competencies: https://www.alberta.ca/system/files/custom_downloaded_images/psc-alberta-public-service-competency-model.pdf.

• Drive for Results: Ability to understand the impact that fair, valid, and reliable provincial assessments and screeners have on students' academic goals.
• Creative Problem Solving: Ability to critically analyze provincial data and initiate, manage, and coordinate projects that serve the psychometrically driven business needs of the sector.
• Systems Thinking: Ability to conceive, design, and conduct policy-based research studies to inform sector and division decision making.
• Agility: Ability to recognize the changing landscape of education in Canada, anticipate changing priorities, and embrace the challenges presented by working with various stakeholders.

Qualifications

Minimum Recruitment Standards

Master’s degree in educational measurement or a related field plus five years in statistics with proven ability to solve psychometric and statistical problems; or equivalent as described below.

Equivalency: Bachelor's Degree in a related field plus seven years of related experience.

For application consideration, you must attach a cover letter explaining your qualification and suitability for this role.

The position requires the following knowledge, skills and experiences:

• Expert knowledge of the mathematics behind psychometric statistics used to build and test custom scoring and reporting systems.
• Expert knowledge of databases for the psychometric aspects of sector systems and functions using software applications such as SPSS, EQS, SIBTEST, Iteman, Lertaps, Bilog, CIPE, Parscale, TESTGRAF, RStudio, Visual Basic, MS Access, MS Excel.
• Expert understanding of Classical Test Theory (CTT) and Item Response Theory (IRT) and the ability to use that information to design scoring and reporting systems and to provide expert advice and to support members of the sector.

Minimum recruitment standards outline the minimum education and experience required for appointment to a job classification. Refer to https://www.alberta.ca/alberta-public-service-minimum-recruitment-standards.

Notes

This is a full-time permanent position, working 36.25 hours per week, Monday to Friday.

Work location is in Edmonton.

Candidates are required to submit resume and cover letter that succinctly demonstrate their qualifications against the job requirements, including education, experience, and relevant competencies. Resumes must include precise employment dates (month and year) to assist in assessing attention to detail skills.

The final candidates for this position will be asked to undergo an academic check, references, and may need to provide a suitable security screening.

Any costs associated with obtaining the required documents/checks as noted or interview travel expenses, will be the responsibility of the candidate. Out-of-province applicants can obtain the required documents/checks from the province they currently reside in.

Links and information on what the GoA have to offer to prospective employees.

• Working for the Alberta Public Service - https://www.alberta.ca/advantages-working-for-alberta-public-service.aspx.
• Public Service Pension Plan (PSPP) - https://www.pspp.ca.
• Alberta Public Service Benefit Information - https://www.alberta.ca/alberta-public-service-benefits.
• Professional learning and development - https://www.alberta.ca/professional-development-support-directive.
• Research Alberta Public Service Careers tool – https://researchapscareers.alberta.ca.
• Positive workplace culture and work-life balance.
• Leadership and mentorship programs.