Stephen N. Elliott, PhD

Stephen N. Elliott, PhD, is the founding Director of the Learning Sciences Institute, a trans-university research enterprise at Arizona State University, and is the Phil & Amy Mickelson Foundation Professor of Education. He received his doctorate at Arizona State University in 1980 and has been on the faculty at several major research universities, including the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Vanderbilt University. He typically teaches courses on measurement and assessment of academic and social behavior.

Currently, he co-directs two USDE research grants concerning academic growth models and the measurement of opportunity to learn for students with disabilities. He also is a co-PI for an IES project on the validity of a new measure of principals’ learning-focused leadership behaviors.

Stephen has been a productive scholar, authoring more than 200 journal articles, books, and book chapters, along with 5 widely used behavior-rating scales. His research focuses on scale development and educational assessment practices. In particular, he has published articles on (a) the assessment of children's social skills and academic competence, (b) the use of testing accommodations and alternate assessment methods for evaluating the academic performance of students with disabilities for educational accountability, and (c) students’ opportunities to learn the intended curriculum. Along with Vanderbilt colleagues, he also designed and validated the Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education to evaluate the performance of principals and their influence on students’ achievement.

Stephen’s scholarly and professional contributions have been recognized by his colleagues in education and psychology research as evidenced by being selected as an American Psychological Association Senior Scientist in 2009, the Lightner Witmer Award from APA Division 16 in 1984, a Fellow in four APA divisions, and being appointed Editor of School Psychology Review (1984-1990) for two terms. In 2008, he was also selected as a Fellow for "sustained achievement in education research" by the American Educational Research Association. Steve consults with state assessment leaders on the assessment and instruction of PreK-12 students and served on the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Education Goals 2000.

In 1996, he was selected as UW-Madison’s Van Hise Outreach Professor for his “outstanding record of teaching and commitment to providing continued professional development programs for educators and psychologists.” He currently serves on ETS’s Visiting Research Panel and is the Director of Research and Scientific Practice for the Society of the Study of School Psychology.