Drs. Wirth and Houts will be teaching an IRT software pre-conference workshop at the 2016 International Meeting of The Psychometric Society. The class is a full-day training workshop offering an introduction and overview of flexMIRT® features and capabilities as well as hands-on experience. Additional information and comprehensive course descriptions may be found on the conference website.
Monthly Archives: March 2016
flexMIRT® Training at NCME 2016
Drs. Cai and Houts will be teaching an IRT software pre-conference workshop at the 2016 annual meeting of the National Council on Measurement in Education. The class is a full-day training workshop offering an introduction and overview of the flexMIRT® features and capabilities as well as hands-on experience. Additional information and comprehensive course descriptions may be found on the conference websites. Conference Program Here
Athletic Aptitude Battery™ (A2B™) 2016 Cornerbacks
We are now going to take a look at the 2016 cornerback class. Based on prior draft classes, the A2B™ groups cornerbacks into 5 Player Types based on their athletic profiles. Huge Physical: This group consists of huge (~6’2” or taller), physical CBs – think Seattle CBs (Brandon Browner). Usually these CBs have lower overall athleticism, but there are a few exceptions to this rule (Nnamdi Asomugha). Big Explosive: This group has CBs with good size (~6’1”-6’2”), explosion, and strength. There are … Read More
When you assume…
Like a lot of fathers, my dad is fond of ugly ties, bad jokes, and meant-to-be-funny sayings. When stuck behind a slow car, “Drive it or milk it” is an odds-on favorite to come out of his mouth. If you are talking to him and say, “I’m not sure but I guess…” about a topic, his response will likely be, “You know what happens when you assume, don’t you?” referring to the adage, “When you assume, you make an ASS … Read More
Athletic Aptitude Battery™ (A2B™) 2016 Wide Receivers
In this entry, we are looking at what the A2B™ has to say about the top 5 wide receivers of the 2016 draft class (based on rankings from CBSsports.com1). Our previous posts described the A2B™ in more detail, but for the newcomer the important thing to keep in mind is that A2B™ scores are obtained using only data from their NFL combine performance. As a further note, remember the A2B™ Domain Scores are relative to other NFL-caliber athletes. That is, … Read More
Introducing the Athletic Aptitude Battery™ (A2B™): Part 2
Wide Receivers as an Example Last post, we provided a general description of the A2B™ and discussed its utility for player evaluation. This time, we are going to demonstrate the power of the A2B™ for a position that some sources1.2 suggest NFL combine data is not very useful for: the wide receiver. Some background before we begin – the wide receiver A2B™ was developed and validated using data on a sample of nearly 600 prospects since 2000. While the position of … Read More
Introducing the Athletic Aptitude Battery™ (A2B™): Part 1
Rethinking the NFL Combine and Athleticism A big challenge in NFL player evaluation is the assessment of athletic ability. Most people agree that athleticism is not accurately reflected in single observed event (e.g., 40 yard dash time), but rather it is a complex concept informing many different aspects of a player’s performance. This is why teams use multiple sources of player data when attempting to quantify “overall athleticism”. One widely available public source of player athleticism data is from the … Read More