A&M faculty and students present at conference in Barcelona

Recently, Autumn Wild, Dr. Sara Finney, and Dr. Brian Leventhal from the Assessment and Measurement PhD program traveled to the APS conference in Barcelona.

Autumn Wild (fourth-year, Assessment & Measurement Ph.D. program) had a phenomenal time at the APS conference in Barcelona, Spain. At the conference, Autumn co-facilitated a 3-hour workshop on Item Response Theory with her A&M advisor, Dr. Brian Leventhal. She also presented a talk on the use of propensity score weighting to investigate the effect of engaging in Honors curriculum on campus, a result of a partnership between the Honors College and the Center for Assessment & Research Studies (CARS). Throughout the conference, Autumn was able to network with colleagues internationally, sharing her own work and learning from others. Overall, Autumn was incredibly grateful for the opportunity and is eager to continue her research back at JMU.

Dr. Sara Finney also presented at APS, sharing three empirical studies she conducted with colleagues.

Sara teamed up with Dr. Brian French from Washington State University and students (indicated with *) from both WSU and JMU to study the impact of rapid responding on a risk assessment for high school students. Their results showcased the validity concerns that should be examined for risk level classification.

French, B., Finney, S.J., *Pires Gifford, L., *Herr, R., & *Galangue, D. (2026, May). Misclassification of risk level due to disengaged responding: Cause for concern for student risk assessments. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Association of Psychological Sciences, Barcelona.

Sara partnered with colleagues from Auburn University to complete two very different studies. First, their work showcased the positive impact of a semester-long leadership course on decreasing students’ leadership worry and increasing self-efficacy related leadership skills.

Miller, J.S. & Finney, S.J. (2026, May). From confidence to worry: Leadership development and affective challenges in budding student leaders. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Association of Psychological Sciences, Barcelona.

Second, their work highlighted the need for early and institution wide generative AI training for college students given students’ low AI literacy. This study fit nicely with the dozens of studies presented on AI at the international APS conference.

Miller, S.A., Finney, S.J., Miller, J.S., Rotch, R. & *Mehou, J. (2026, May). AI everywhere, literacy nowhere: The need for generative AI education. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Association of Psychological Sciences, Barcelona.