David Rutkowski

I am a Professor specializing in Qualitative and Quantitative Research Methods at Indiana University. Before joining IU, I served as a Professor of Education at the Center for Educational Measurement (CEMO) at the University of Oslo, Norway, and worked as a researcher for the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) in Hamburg, Germany. I earned my PhD in educational policy with a focus on evaluation from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

My research centers on educational assessment and policy, particularly in the context of international large-scale assessments. I explore the methodologies of large-scale assessments, their role in policy debates, the influence of background questionnaire quality on achievement results, and achievement estimation in heterogeneous populations. I have collaborated with or consulted for various national and international organizations, including the US State Department, USAID, UNESCO, the IEA, and the OECD. My work has led me to over 40 countries, including Afghanistan, South Sudan, Trinidad and Tobago, and the US. Currently, I am a consultant for the World Bank, editor of the IEA policy brief series, Co-editor of the journal Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, serve on the IEA Publication Editorial Committee (PEC), represent Indiana at the higher education rep for Smarter Balance, and am a board member of several academic journals.

I thrive on collaborative projects with researchers from IU and globally. For instance, I am working on a project examining the impact of digital assessment on teaching practices with teacher unions in Canada, Iceland, and South Africa. Additionally, I collaborate with colleagues in Denmark, Germany, and the UK to enhance large-scale assessments for diverse populations. I also have an ongoing partnership with Australian colleagues, critically analyzing the use and misuse of international assessments.

I teach courses in evaluation, mixed methods, statistics, and large-scale assessment. I am passionate about mentoring graduate students, encouraging them to pursue high-quality research and expand their professional networks both nationally and internationally, empowering them to address significant educational and methodological research challenges.