Qizhou Duan

Qizhou Duan is a graduate student in Quantitative Psychology. He graduated from the College of William and Mary in 2020 with a double major in Mathematics and Psychology. His research interest lies in psychological measurement, generally speaking, how accurately we can measure people's abilities. He has been studying Differential Item Functioning (DIF). DIF happens in situations where people who have the same ability level but are put into a disadvantageous position when answering a particular item due to their group memberships such as their affiliation to a different culture, being in ethnically minority groups, and differences in individuals' social economic status. To do that, Qizhou is combining research in response time models with item response models to add an evaluative layer when considering whether an item contains potential biases. More recently, he is interested in Nonparametric techniques and their application to response time models, and how we can leverage these new methods to ensure fairness in educational tests.