Pamela A. Moss
Location
Room 4220
Mailbox 4215/4218
610 E. University Ave.
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1259
Pamela Moss is the John Dewey Collegiate Professor of Education at the University of Michigan. Her scholarship engages the critical potential of methodological pluralism in education research: how it is and might be theorized, practiced, taught, supported by organizational and governmental policies, and embedded in the evolving infrastructures through which knowledge is produced and used to orient action in complex educational contexts.
Initially, she explored methodological pluralism in the context of educational assessment: how different methodologies complement and challenge conceptions of validity and enable understandings of how educators actually interpret and use assessments. Her focus on methodological pluralism grew into a more general interest in research on the role of evidence in educational policy and practice. This line of work culminated in a book-length chapter, “Engaging Methodological Pluralism,” written with psychometrician Edward Haertel, published in the 5th edition of AERA’s benchmark Handbook of Research on Teaching.
Her current research focuses on knowledge infrastructures (KIs) in education research–dynamic relationships among policies, practices, norms, resources, social structures, and technologies, as well as methodologies, through which knowledge is produced—with particular attention to issues of epistemic justice. Goals for this line of work are both critical and generative: to build an argument for/illustrate the value of infrastructural studies in education research; to highlight affordances and limitations in our current KIs; to draw on KI-relevant resources outside education to illustrate possibilities for infrastructural design (and its consequences); and to engage by example in intentional, participatory infrastructural design and formative evaluation to explore alternatives.
Moss is an elected member of the National Academy of Education and a fellow of the American Educational Research Association. She was a member of the joint committee revising the 1999 AERA, APA, NCME Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing and chair of AERA’s Task Force on Standards for Reporting on Empirical Social Science Research in AERA Publications.
Selected Publications
"Platformed knowledge brokerage in education: power and possibilities."
Lawlor, J. A., Hammond, J. W., Lagoze, C., & Moss, P. A. (2021). Networks, Knowledge Brokers, and the Public Policymaking Process. New York: Palgrave.
"Research synthesis infrastructures: shaping knowledge in education."
Hammond, J. W., Moss, P. A., Huynh, M. Q., & Lagoze, C. (2020). Review of Research in Education, 44(1), 1–35.
"Engaging methodological pluralism."
Moss, P. A. and Haertel, E. H. (2016). Handbook of research on teaching (5th Ed), (pp. 127-247). Washington, DC: AERA.
"Shifting the focus of validity for test use."
Moss, P. A. (2016). Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 16 (2), 1-16.
"Validity in action: Lessons from studies of data use."
Moss, P. A. (2013). Journal of Educational Measurement, 50 (1), 91-98.
"Exploring the macro-micro dialectic in data use research."
Moss, P. A. (2012). American Journal of Education, 118 (2), 223-232.
"Analyzing the teaching of professional practice."
Moss, P. A. (2011). Teachers College Record, 113 (12), 2878-2896.
"Learning from our differences: A dialogue across perspectives on quality in educational research."
Moss, P.A., Phillips, D. C., Erickson, F. D., Floden, R. E., Lather, P. A., and Schneider, B. L. (2009). Educational Researcher, 38 (6) 501-517.
"Assessment, equity, and opportunity to learn."
Moss, P. A., Pullin, D., Haertel, E. H., Gee, J. P., and Young, L. (Eds.) (2008). New York: Cambridge University Press.
"Evidence and decision making."
Moss, P. A. (Ed.) (2007). The 106th yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part I. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
"Validity in educational assessment."
Moss, P. A., Girard, B., Haniford, L. (2006). Review of Research in Education, 30, 109-162.