RESTON, Va. (August 28, 2023) – The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), a global association of leading graduate business schools, today celebrated Psychometrician Hwanggyu Lim for receiving this year’s National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) Alicia Cascallar Award for an Outstanding Paper by an Early Career Scholar. His paper, entitled “Item Response Theory (IRT) Residual Approach to Detecting Differential Item Functioning,” details a groundbreaking psychometric method designed to ensure test fairness of modern educational measurement based on IRT, in particular assessments owned and administered by GMAC like the GMAT™ exam, the most widely used admissions exam for business schools.
In the previous decade, the work of GMAC psychometricians had been acknowledged by the NCME Alicia Cascallar Award two other times: Psychometrician Edison Choe in 2020 and Head of Test Development and Psychometrics Chris Han in 2012, both of whom contributed to Lim’s acclaimed paper this year. Together, their NCME award-winning studies in item pocket approach to allow response review and change in computerized adaptive testing, constructing a robust score scale from IRT scores with informed boundaries, and a residual-based differential item functioning detection framework in item response theory are all readily applied and put into good use as the foundation for key features and improvements of the GMAT Focus Edition announced earlier this year.
“I am proud that we have attracted the best young talent in the field of psychometrics and honored to work alongside this group of industry-leading psychometricians, whose technological ingenuity never ceases to impress and inspire,” said Joy Jones, CEO of GMAC. “Their work not only contributes significantly to our commitment to ensuring the quality and fairness of our assessment portfolio for test takers of all backgrounds and to our mission of supporting holistic and inclusive admissions practices, but also will leave long-lasting impact in the space of educational measurement.”
About GMAC
The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) is a mission-driven association of leading graduate business schools worldwide. GMAC provides world-class research, industry conferences, recruiting tools, and assessments for the graduate management education industry as well as resources, events, and services that help guide candidates through their higher education journey. Owned and administered by GMAC, the Graduate Management Admission Test™ (GMAT™) exam is the most widely used graduate business school assessment.
More than 12 million prospective students a year trust GMAC’s websites, including mba.com, to learn about MBA and business master’s programs, connect with schools around the world, prepare and register for exams and get advice on successfully applying to MBA and business master’s programs. BusinessBecause and GMAC Tours are subsidiaries of GMAC, a global organization with offices in China, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
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