An academic lecture on Measures with Meaning in Human Sciences delivered by Prof. Robert Cavanagh from Curtin University, Australia, was held for the faculty and students of SFL (the School of Foreign Languages) on Jiulonghu Campus on January 23, 2015.
Prof. Cavanagh, Director of the Research and Graduate Studies Office in the School of Education, Curtin University, has held the post of Chairman of Pacific-Rim Objective Measurement Symposium for several tenures. Furthermore, Prof. Cavanagh, the author of Applications of Rasch Measurement in Learning Environments Research, is one of the distinguished scholars in the field of Rasch Model and its frontier of application.
Beginning with a simple spelling test, Prof. Cavanagh introduced the conception, value and significance of Rasch Measurement in human sciences with the examples of quality, density and mass. In his lecture, he not only introduced the basic formula of Rasch Model, the characteristics and advantages of Rasch Measurement, but also presented some current Rasch application software and relevant classics. At the end of his lecture, Prof. Cavanagh made a vivid comparison and contrast between traditional Measurement Theory and modern Item Response Theory to conclude the lecture. The lecture aroused the faculty’s great enthusiasm, and some raised and discussed several professional questions with the professor.
