Psychometrician

**Details**:
**Reference number**:

- 420717

**Salary**:

- £48,999
- National pay band minimum £48,999. London pay band minimum £52,799.
- A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

GBP

**Job grade**:

- Senior Executive Officer- Senior Professional Technical Officer

** Contract type**:

- Permanent

** Business area**:

- DFE - Schools Group

** Type of role**:

- Analytical
Operational Research
Statistics

** Working pattern**:

- Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time

** Number of jobs available**:

- 1

**Contents**:

- Location
- About the job
- Benefits
- Things you need to know

** Location**:

- Bristol - BS2 0EL, Cambridge - CB2 8DR, Coventry - CV1 2WT, London - SW1P 3BT, Manchester - M1 2WD, Sheffield - S1 2FJ

**Please note** - Bristol currently have site controls in place. Therefore, this location option is only available to existing DfE employees already assigned to this office location.

** About the job**:
** Job summary**:

- **Are you an experienced analyst who is passionate about making a difference to schools and children across the UK?**
- We are recruiting a psychometrician to support the development and delivery of national assessments

This is an exciting time to be joining the Standards and Testing Agency (STA) as we look to build upon our existing assessment and digital service capability.

The STA community is made up of a group of enthusiastic and hardworking individuals from within both the public and private sectors. Our people are specialists in what they do whether it's developing tests, project managing the test cycle or working with suppliers. We are a friendly and inclusive team who acknowledge and appreciate everyone’s expertise, knowledge and experience.

If you have a desire to work on one of the Department for Education's key priorities for ensuring all children achieve their potential, and ensure a positive experience for schools, this could be the role for you.

** Job description**:

- The Standards and Testing Agency (STA) is the part of the Department for Education responsible for the development and delivery of statutory assessments for pupils up to the age of 14 and for school-based assessment policy.

In addition to policy development and implementation, the STA’s main functions are to:

- Develop high quality and rigorous National Curriculum Assessments (NCAs) in line with Ministerial policy.
- Deliver the assessments (including printing, distribution, marking and data capture).
- Support schools in carrying out the assessments.- The role presents interesting and challenging opportunities to deliver key ministerial priorities. The post-holder will work closely both with internal colleagues across STA and the wider department, and with external partners and suppliers. We are looking for a creative, proactive and motivated individual who is excited by the opportunity to make a positive impact and deliver on a high-profile policy area.
- At DfE we have a strong culture of inclusion and diversity and are committed to being an equal opportunities employer. We aim to develop all our staff to enable them to make a full contribution to meeting the Department's objectives, and to fulfil their own potential. We promote and support the use of a range of flexible working patterns to help staff to balance home and work responsibilities and we treat people fairly irrespective of their working arrangements.

** Person specification**:

- **Key responsibilities**
- The post holder will report to one of the Lead Psychometricians.
- You will be responsible for carrying out quantitative analysis on a range of testing programmes using a variety of statistical and psychometric techniques:

- Undertaking psychometric and statistical analysis on a range of testing programmes.
- Contributing to the development of tests and other assessments through provision of psychometric expertise.
- Working closely with colleagues to ensure data from trialling meets analysis needs both from paper-based and digital assessments.
- Setting and maintaining standards on tests in a rigorous way.
- Contributing to development and coding of tools for psychometric analysis using for example R, SQL and VBA, with willingness to develop competency with other software as required.
- Contributing to the collection of evidence of validity, reliability and fairness of tests.

** Key experience requirements**:

- The successful applicant for the post to satisfy the following **Essential criteria**:

- Delivering high quality analysis in an operational testing/ assessment context. This will include using advanced skills in Excel **and** experience in R.
- Use of assessment theories and psychometric techniques such as classical test theory, item response theory and validity theory.
- Experience of working in a technical team supporting specialist domain knowledge and activities such as equating, standard setting and standards maintenance.
- Experience of collaborative working wi