Burcu Arslan is a research scientist at the ETS Research Institute (remote, based in Germany). She holds a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence (AI), an M.S. in cognitive science, and a B.S. in statistics. Her interdisciplinary research integrates AI, cognitive science, and statistical modeling to advance educational assessment and learning.
Arslan’s work centers on (a) AI-enabled personalized assessment and learning approaches that enhance learners’ motivation, engagement, and performance; (b) modeling construct-relevant behaviors using process data from digital assessment and learning environments to gain deeper insights into learners’ knowledge, skills, and strategies; and (c) designing interactive assessment items and tasks to measure complex skills, such as empathy, while enabling valid interpretation of the rich process data they generate.
Her scholarly contributions span the development of frameworks for machine- and learner-driven adaptation, investigations into the effects of personalized nudges, modeling process data to inform task design and characterize learner behavior, experimental studies examining the impact of different feedback types on learning, and computational cognitive models that simulate both learner and human rater cognition and behavior.
Arslan has served as co-director of the NAEP Survey Assessment Innovations Laboratory (SAIL) research initiative, as principal investigator on a project funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, and as Co-principal investigator on a European Union-funded project through the Northern Netherlands Alliance. She has also held editorial roles as an academic editor for PLoS ONE and a consulting editor for the Journal of Memory and Cognition. In addition, she was an invited expert on the RAND Corporation scientific panel on evaluating the technical feasibility and operational utility of applying state-of-the-art AI and machine learning systems.
Last updated: 1/28/2026