Abstract
I’d like to begin by thanking Sage for selecting me as the new editor-in-chief of ASSESSMENT. I would also like to thank outgoing editor-in-chief, Dr. Michael Bagby, and the outgoing associate editors (Drs. Christensen, Devins, Ryder, and Sellbom). Dr. Bagby has chosen to step down after an outstanding 5-year tenure during which the journal’s impact factor and visibility improved significantly. I am excited to begin and will enthusiastically pursue a course of continuous improvement in terms of process, impact factor, and scientific quality. I believe this upward trajectory can be sustained, and I am committed to moving ASSESSMENT forward. I am also excited to work with an outstanding roster of continuing associate editors (Drs. Markon, Samuel, Simms, and Tackett) and new associate editors (Drs. Hillary, Hopwood, Rossi, and Ruiz) who are similarly committed to the journal’s growth and development. We are working on plans for a number of special series and issues in the future.
My training in assessment science and practice is broad, thorough, and contemporary. I realized long ago that instruments, methods, technology, and statistics advance rapidly, and I have maintained over 20 years of continuous assessment research, training, teaching, and practice to ensure I am working at or ahead of the curve. Philosophically, I have an ecumenical perspective on assessment science and practice. I am not of one particular camp or another. I’ve been trained in virtually all paradigms of assessment and I teach all paradigms of assessment, recognizing the strengths and limitations of each. During my editorship, the primary factors for evaluating manuscripts and improving the journal will be the scientific quality, impact, clinical utility, and research utility of the submissions.
I think that ASSESSMENT can become the flagship journal in assessment science. In some ways it is moving in that direction, but I do have ideas for the journal’s future. During my tenure as editor-in-chief, I would like the journal to have an emphasis on assessment science over assessment instruments. What do I mean by this? An increased emphasis on assessment science aims to advance the field by examining new assessment methodologies and techniques for both researchers and practitioners. This can be accomplished in several ways. First, ASSESSMENT seeks contributions that evaluate and employ new assessment technologies, assessment methods, and analytic techniques for research and applied aims. Second, ASSESSMENT also seeks multimethod research and investigations examining the integration of assessment methods in research and practice. Third, ASSESSMENT will maintain a focus on big picture issues such as how assessment research informs understanding of the structure, classification, and mechanisms of psychopathology, and how assessment can facilitate psychotherapy, health, and well-being. Fourth, ASSESSMENT will explicitly require authors to discuss the implications of their research and findings for assessment science, practice, or both. That is, the research questions and results reported in submitted manuscripts should be contextualized within the current state of assessment science and practice in the content domain.
Instrument-focused contributions tend to introduce and/or offer evidence for the validity and utility of specific instruments (self-reports, interviews, coding systems, performance-based measures, experimental tasks, neuropsychological tests, etc.). These are the bedrock of assessment journals, and ASSESSMENT seeks high-quality submissions that introduce useful, novel, and nonredundant instruments or demonstrate how existing instruments have applicability in new research or applied contexts. Under my editorship, authors of such papers will need to provide strong rationales for their efforts and articulate important implications for assessment science and practice. This is because the fact that one can construct a new instrument does not mean the field needs it. It may be too specialized (and hence better for a specialty journal) or it may be redundant with existing measures. Similarly, I don’t feel that papers presenting third and fourth replications of factor structures or other basic psychometric characteristics of existing instruments merit publication in ASSESSMENT. Finally, ASSESSMENT also receives its fair share of translations of existing measures. Such contributions should involve languages that can make a broad impact, must employ robust empirical translation/back-translation procedures, consider relevant cultural issues, and address significant theoretical, conceptual, or applied issues in the content domain under consideration. Mere translation, no matter how successful the psychometrics, is not sufficient to merit publication in ASSESSMENT.
Assessment science and practice have never been better. I look forward to helping make ASSESSMENT the top outlet for groundbreaking work and to seeing the innovative advances that are submitted to the journal over the coming years.