The Curry School Foundation congratulates associate professor Timothy Konold on being named 2009 Curry School Outstanding Professor.
His specialty
Quantitative methods and psychometric applications related to large-scale test use and development. His particular focus is on the errors of measurement associated with informant-based assessment systems.
His recent work
Informant-based systems of assessment are regularly used by parents and teachers to gather judgments on the frequency and severity of children’s behavior and social skills. Unfortunately, it has been well documented that the ratings obtained by parents and teachers about a child’s disposition often disagree. Tim’s recent work in this area has employed latent variable modeling to disentangle student trait (e.g., behaviors) and informant effects. He has found that scores obtained on informant-based measures may be revealing as much about the informant as they are about the subject of observation. Separately, he has found that parents’ and teachers’ ratings of children’s social skills are not consistently reliable in forecasting children’s achievement growth from preschool through grade five.
What he enjoys most about the Curry School
“The Curry School is comprised of faculty and students with world-class talents that work together toward the common goal of improving education. The passion of this group is truly remarkable, and being a member of this family is an incredibly rewarding experience for me.”
Teaching philosophy
“My classes are all designed with the primary goal of enabling participants to become self-sufficient lifelong users and students of quantitative methods, with an eye toward their applications in the social sciences, in general, and the field of education, in particular. Curry students are highly motivated to learn, and I attempt to provide multiple pathways for that to occur.”
What his nominators said
“Tim possesses exceptional quantitative research design and analysis skills, is a highly respected teacher, and has conducted and published research from preschool to post-college.”
“As a doctoral student in Tim’s statistics classes, I found him to be extraordinary at cultivating relationships with all of the students in class. His content knowledge and rigor in the classroom were exceptional, but it is perhaps the atypical attention to connecting with students that sets him apart.”
“Tim Konold is the professor that I really aspire to emulate. His productivity is incredible; his teaching is outstanding; his sense of humor is dry and hilarious … Tim has balance and is a healthy role model for all Curry doctoral students.”
Selected recent publications:
Konold, T. R., Jamison, K. R. Stanton-Chapman, T. L., & Rimm-Kaufman, S.E. (In press). Relationships among informant based measures of social skills on student achievement: A longitudinal examination of differential effects by sex. Applied Developmental Science.
Konold, T. R., & Canivez, G. L. (2009). Differential relationships among WISC-IV and WIAT-II scales: An evaluation of potentially moderating child demographics. Educational and Psychological Measurement OnlineFirst (December 18). doi:10.1177/0013164409355686.
Grimm, K. J., Pianta, R. C., & Konold, T. R. (2009). Longitudinal multitrait-multimethod models for developmental research. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 44, 233–258. doi: 10.1080/00273170902794230.
Konold, T. R., Jablonski, B. Nottingham, A., Kessler, L., Byrd, S., Imig, S., Berry, R., & McNergney, R. (2008). Adding value to K–12 schooling: Investigating teacher education, teaching, and pupil learning. Journal of Teacher Education, 59, 300–312. doi: 10.1177/0022487108321378.
Konold, T. R., & Glutting, J. J. (2008). ADHD and method variance: A latent variable approach applied to a nationally representative sample of college freshmen. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 41(5), 405–416. doi: 10.1177/0022219408321111.
