Randy Bennett is Norman O. Frederiksen Chair in Assessment Innovation at ETS in Princeton, New Jersey. Since the 1980s, he has conducted research on integrating advances in cognitive science, technology, and measurement to create new approaches to assessment intended to have positive impact on teaching and learning. For his work, he was given the ETS Senior Scientist Award in 1996, the ETS Career Achievement Award in 2005, the Teachers College, Columbia University Distinguished Alumni Award in 2016, and Fellowship status in the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in 2017.
From 1999 through 2005, Bennett directed the NAEP Technology Based Assessment project, which explored the use of computerized testing in NAEP. The project was the first to have administered computer-based performance assessments to nationally representative samples of elementary and secondary school students, and to use "clickstream,” or logfile, data in such samples to measure the processes used in problem solving.
From 2007 to 2016, Bennett directed an integrated research initiative titled, Cognitively-Based Assessment of, for, and as Learning (CBAL). This initiative focused on creating theory-based summative and formative assessment to support learning and instruction. The initiative contributed centrally to such foundational results as the application of the concept of "theory of action" to assessment systems, and the learning progressions that underlie such innovative educational games as GlassLab's Mars Generation One: Argubot Academy.
Randy Bennett is President of the International Association for Educational Assessment (IAEA), an organization primarily constituted of governmental and non-governmental nonprofit measurement organizations throughout the world. He is also President of the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME), whose members are individuals employed in universities, testing organizations, state education departments, and school districts.