With one month left to apply for the 2024 NAEP Doctoral Student Internship Program (applications close on February 2), we’d like to introduce the NAEP research community to our new internship topic area: artificial intelligence (AI).
New AI tools offer an ever-expanding toolkit to support and enhance the assessment cycle, data analysis, educational measurement, and learning outcomes. Interns in this new topic area will explore the application of AI to tasks such as item generation, item scoring, and reporting advancement. Alongside expert NAEP researchers from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and the American Institutes for Research (AIR), interns will have the opportunity to explore the innovative use of AI in educational assessment.
NAEP researcher Dr. Ruhan Circi spoke to the importance of this emerging field:
“The integration of AI in educational assessment is not just a leap forward in technology; it represents a potential shift in how we understand and enhance learning outcomes. This potential shift opens new avenues in educational assessment, allowing for a more precise, efficient, and insightful understanding of what students know and can do as well as development of new support mechanisms for the assessment cycle.”
For this new topic area, we are seeking doctoral student applicants with a solid foundation in machine learning, data analysis, and ethical AI principles, as well as familiarity with generative models like transformers (e.g., GPT-4, Llama 2) and cloud services. While not required, experience with natural language processing (NLP) and computer vision is preferred. This paid internship is remote, with some covered travel to Arlington, VA, expected. Application instructions and additional information on the internship and its new AI topic area can be found here.
For more perspective on the program, check out some of our interviews with 2023 alumni here or watch our newest video featuring some of our previous interns here. Don’t forget to subscribe to the NAEP R&D mailing list to stay up to date on internship information.