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GRADUATION INTERVIEW ▼

Exploring Disengaged Responding in Educational Large-Scale Assessments

AN INTERVIEW WITH JANA WELLING

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SHORT PROFILE

Name: Jana Welling
Field: Psychology
Dissertation: Disengaged Responding in Educational Large-Scale Assessments:
New lnsights into its ldentification, Modeling, and Consequences

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Our doctoral member Jana Welling has successfully completed her dissertation. In her Graduation Interview, she gives insights into the topic and findings of her dissertation, talks about her time at the BAGSS, and shares the next step in her career.

// What drew you to your dissertation topic and what interests you most about it?

J. W.: During my master studies, I was working in a healthcare company and charged with finding out whether the responses by study participants were given honestly or carelessly. Intrigued by this complex question, I decided to continue this line of research as doctoral student. Although I changed employer and field of research (from healthcare to educational research), I stayed with the main idea: Can responses by participants be trusted? If not, this would entail severe consequences for research based on compromised questionnaires and competence tests. However, identifying careless or disengaged responses is not trivial: How can we find the unmotivated ones? This was the starting point of my dissertation.


// Can you give us a small sneak peek about the findings of your thesis?

J.W.: My thesis entails four major implications for disengaged responding in educational research. First, it indicates that the consequences of disengagement for the validation of test results may be less severe than often assumed. Second, it shows that empirical findings on disengagement may be age dependent, therefore challenging the generalizability of established findings to child samples. Third, it confirms response times as reliable indicator of fast disengagement, while showing that additional process data may not contain enough information on the test-taking process to significantly improve the identification of disengaged responding. Fourth, it demonstrates that also in plausible value estimation, disengaged responding should be accounted for on the response level. 


// If you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice at the start of your PhD, what would it be?

J.W.: Don’t rely solely on the opinion of your supervisor(s), but try to get as much feedback and advice from other senior scientists as you can.

// What is the next step in your career?

J.W.: Fortunately, I will stay at the LIfBi as postdoctoral research fellow and continue to do psychometric research.