Markus Broer

Markus Broer has more than 25 years of experience conducting and overseeing research focused on U.S. and international education outcomes and their associated factors, assessment validity, and measurement, as well as disseminating findings to different audiences (e.g., researchers, practitioners, policymakers). 

Dr. Broer is currently serving in a senior advisory and quality assurance role for AIR’s National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) and International Studies support contracts with the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). He also works on other assessment- and research-related projects and is involved in expanding partnerships and pursuing new market segments to diversify and strengthen AIR’s assessment-related work.

From 2013 to 2025, Dr. Broer served as the project director for Research, Analysis, and Psychometric Support under three consecutive contracts supporting NCES. In this role, he managed a team of 20 researchers and provided expert advice and technical assistance on issues related to NAEP. Dr. Broer and his team contributed to impactful work that advanced key initiatives aligned to NAEP’s strategic objectives. For example, he led a multiyear research effort to develop and validate a NAEP socioeconomic status index that has improved NAEP reporting by contextualizing NAEP performance and performance differences for this important variable. He and his team also published a series of papers and facilitated more than 100 conference presentations on NAEP data, which benefited the broader assessment and educational research community and provided important information for multiple NAEP interest holders. 

From 2007 to 2013, Dr. Broer supported AIR’s International Development, Evaluation, and Research program. He provided technical assistance to a variety of international projects and served as a project manager for a multifaceted $16.5 million primary education improvement project in Nicaragua.

Before joining AIR, Dr. Broer served as a senior psychometrician in the Student Assessment Office under the Supreme Education Council of Qatar, where he was involved in the development of the country’s national student assessment system. As the country’s national research coordinator, he also managed Qatar’s first participation in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS). Prior to his work in Qatar, Dr. Broer worked as a visiting scholar in the Center for Global Assessment at the Educational Testing Service (ETS), where he worked on the Adult Literacy and Lifeskills Survey (ALL) and led a research project on differential item functioning in GRE writing prompts.  

Dr. Broer frequently presents at professional conferences, and he has been invited to present to various NAEP advisory groups, expert panels, and the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB). He is the author of a widely cited Springer e-book—Socioeconomic Inequality and Educational Outcomes—which was commissioned by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement.