Expanding a Field from a Critical Frame: A Reflection on Shaping the Development of Critical Assessment | Hybrid seminar | 16 Nov 2026

Reflecting on a 10-year research journey toward shaping the field of Critical Assessment (Sul, 2024), this presentation describes the expansion or construction of fields, particularly from the frame of Critical Theory (Horkheimer, 1937/2002).

Members of marginalized communities encounter problems of misfit in standardized assessment instruments applied universally across populations. Measurement disjuncture (Sul, 2019) names the misalignment that occurs when an instrument developed from one worldview is applied within another. Those problems of misfit form the dimensions of Disjuncture Validity (Sul, 2026a). Culturally specific assessment (Sul, 2019) serves as a formal response to measurement disjuncture. This dialectical pairing resides within a larger structure, the Generalized Disjuncture-Response Dialectic (GDRD; Sul, 2021).

Studying and testing these theoretical frameworks involved constructing the Critical comparative case study design (Sul, 2021), Retrospective Theory Validation, and Retrospective Theory Mapping (Sul, 2026b). Together, these concepts and techniques help form the research infrastructure of a field and processes for building new ones. The presentation concludes with recommendations for future Critical theoretic field development.

About the speaker

David Sul, Ed.D. (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/David-Sul), is Owner and Principal of Sul & Associates International (https://sulandassociates.com/), a measurement and evaluation firm working with communities across North America, Hawaiʻi, and the Caribbean. A psychometrician specializing in the application of Critical Theory to measurement research, he is also a Senior Research Associate at the University of the Virgin Islands and a Lecturer in Education at the University of San Francisco, where he teaches Quantitative Inquiry through a QuantCrit lens. His scholarship centers on Critical Assessment, culturally specific assessment, and measurement disjuncture and its effects on validity. His current work focuses on techniques for validating theory and on processes for building research fields from a Critical frame.

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This hybrid event is free to attend. The virtual link will be circulated on the day.

If you have any access requirements, please email imh.events@durham.ac.uk (https://mailto:imh.events@durham.ac.uk).

This event is hosted by the Measurement Lab (https://medhumsplatform.org/labs/measurement/) of the Discovery Research Platform for Medical Humanities (https://medhumsplatform.org/).

Description supplied by the event organiser.