Sam Rikoon is a research scientist at ETS in the Center for Research on Validity, Fairness, and Equity in Learning and Assessment. He joined ETS after completing his Ph.D. in policy research, evaluation, and measurement from the University of Pennsylvania and has experience working with behavioral and attitudinal assessments in samples ranging from early childhood to adults. His research interests are focused mainly on the development and study of noncognitive and social emotional learning (SEL) competency assessments and interventions, as well as examining relationships between their targeted facets and behavioral, academic, and workplace outcomes.
Rikoon currently serves as the research lead for ETS’s Institute for Student Achievement (ISA), where his work supports multiple ISA initiatives designed to achieve its mission of fostering equitable learning opportunities for all students. He also leads a project at ETS focused on improving the measurement of SEL competencies across several contexts (e.g., student learning, intervention effectiveness) and completed a project funded by the Wallace Foundation to develop a brief situational judgment test of interpersonal skills for middle and high school students. He is also the coeditor of a Routledge volume on the conceptualization, development, and application of SEL assessment.