Dr. Alexander M. Hoffman

President

Dr. Alexander M. Hoffman

Dr. Hoffman is President of AleDev Research & Consulting. A former high school English teacher, he left the classroom when he recognized that the problems he saw in schools could not be solved from within a single classroom—or even within a single school. His work since has spanned education research, policy analysis, and, most centrally, the improvement of standardized testing.

As a research consultant, Dr. Hoffman is a methodologist first. He designs studies to fit the question at hand—quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods—rather than forcing questions into a favored technique. His consulting work includes research design, instrument development, survey construction, interview and focus group protocols, statistical analysis, and program evaluation. Clients bring him problems; he builds the studies that answer them.

His primary research focus is the development of large-scale assessment content. With Marjorie Wine, he is building Rigorous Test Development (RTD), a principled approach to test development that documents and advances best practices for test item and content development, centered on the principle that valid items elicit evidence of the targeted cognition for the range of typical test takers. His work examines the practical work of content development professionals (CDPS) and the too-often-overlooked compromises of domain models to make allowances for inappropriate modeling assumptions.

Dr. Hoffman also explores the potential—and the current limitations—of frontier large language models (LLMs) to aid research and writing. This includes empirical study of what these tools can and cannot yet do in assessment contexts, and hard-won practical knowledge of how to put them to work productively without surrendering professional judgment to them.

Dr. Hoffman holds a doctorate in Leadership, Policy & Politics from Teachers College, Columbia University, where his research focused on policy implementation and school leadership. He also holds master's degrees from Teachers College and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.