Master critical assessment development—the foundation of ethical quantitative inquiry. Complete your CAISU Portfolio: a validated instrument, a research vision, and a documented journey of transformation.
Critical Quantitative Inquiry (CQI) is impossible without measures developed from a critical lens. The critical measure and the critical study are co-dependent. CAISU is the only program that trains Critical Assessment Developers to build assessments that make possible Critical quantitative inquiry.
Master critical assessment development through the four-framework synthesis: QuantCrit, Disjuncture-Response Dialectic, Sociocultural Theory, and Wilson's Constructing Measures. Build validated instruments using Community Cultural Wealth and advanced psychometrics (MRCMLM).
Document your learning journey towards confidence in quantification. Articulate your professional identity as a Critical Assessment Developer. Chart your pathways forward.
Because no other program offers this perspective, you'll transform your field of research. Your instruments replace deficit measures with liberation measures, enabling ethical quantitative inquiry.
Build assessments that measure what communities value, not what external models assume. Your work advances social uplift by creating infrastructure for liberatory research.
Introduces the four theoretical frameworks: QuantCrit, Disjuncture-Response Dialectic, Sociocultural Theory, and Wilson's Constructing Measures. Students examine how traditional assessment perpetuates oppression through measurement disjuncture and explore culturally specific assessment as intellectual amplification. Key concepts include the five QuantCrit tenets, Exploratory Sequential Mixed Methods Design, and developmental alignment. Students build conceptual foundations for developing assessment instruments that serve justice rather than reproduce inequality.
Operationalizes the Exploratory Sequential Mixed Methods Design using Community Cultural Wealth as the pedagogical framework. Students name their specific cultural context, search literature for participant voices describing the six forms of capital, and extract authentic quotes as rubric exemplars. Students learn dichotomous and polytomous developmental rubrics representing Vygotsky's progressions, creating multidimensional instruments grounded in community epistemologies.
Provides technical psychometric training using Modern Measurement Theory grounded in Wilson's Constructing Measures framework. Students learn why MRCMLM is necessary for CCW's interconnected forms of capital. Through comparative analysis of unidimensional and multidimensional approaches using simulated datasets and open-source software (R, Jamovi), students produce rigorous psychometric documentation confirming their instruments function as intended within the named worldview.
This capstone returns students to the purpose of assessment work: conducting critical quantitative research for social uplift. Students complete their CAISU Portfolio by synthesizing their validated instrument with psychometric documentation, designing a research proposal emphasizing instrument development methodology, and composing a learning journey narrative. Students produce a doctoral-ready artifact demonstrating mastery as Critical Assessment Developers.
Complete, validated critical assessment instrument with technical documentation, construct map, validation study, and psychometric evidence. Ready for field use.
Research proposal for conducting critical quantitative research using your validated instrument. Includes introduction, literature review with methodology section, and detailed methods describing instrument deployment in your research study.
Reflective narrative documenting your transformation as a Critical Assessment Developer, towards methodological mastery and commitment to justice-oriented research.
The CAISU Portfolio certifies you as a Critical Assessment Developer with: validated instrument expertise, research design capability, methodological mastery, and documented transformation.
Sul, 2024
Frames research as response to oppression
Gillborn et al., 2018
Treats numbers as political
Vygotsky, 1978
Models developmental progression
Wilson, 2008
Provides technical rigor through Modern Measurement Theory
Students apply this methodology using Community Cultural Wealth (Yosso, 2005) as the pedagogical framework, which provides accessible constructs for learning assessment development. Bourdieu's cultural capital theory provides contextual understanding of social reproduction and the measurement disjuncture being addressed.
Indigenous Education • HBCU Mission • Public Health Trauma • Multilingual Education • Caribbean Education • Critical Dance
Primary Audience: Qualitative researchers with critical theoretical backgrounds seeking to build their skills in quantification while maintaining their justice commitments.
Build validated CAISU Portfolio as dissertation foundation.
Create instruments measuring community strengths.
Build resilience-focused, trauma-informed measures.
Transform methods to serve social justice.
Express your interest in joining the inaugural cohort. Transform your research capacity. Transform yourself as a Critical Assessment Developer.