Dent Gitchel

Background

About Dent Gitchel

I am an Asociate Professor at the University of Arkansas a Little Rock. Prior to that, I was at West Virginia University. I am also a certified Compassion Cultivation Teacherthrough the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University, and teach compassion cultivation seminars and workshops throughout the region. I have three times participated as a Senior Investigator at the Mind and Life Summer Research Institute. My academic teaching and research interests fall in several main categories: 1) Foundations of Rehabilitation. I am interested in the core practices of Rehabilitation Counseling, increasing our understanding of disability through the WHO ICF framework, multicultural and International factors in Rehabilitation Counseling and experiences of disability, and evaluation of correlates of disability utilizing large-scale databases. 2) Psychometrics. On a technical level, I am interested in polytomous item response theory models, differential item functioning techniques, and SEM CFA techniques. I am particularly interested in advanced item analysis. On a theoretical level, I am interested in construct validity. On a practical level, I am interested in utilizing the above techniques to assist in the understanding of differential response patterns across groups, to assist in the understanding of diversity, to provide better evaluation of outcomes, and to help in the ongoing assessment of construct validity. 3) Compassion. I am interested in both the measurement of Compassion as a construct and the measurement of its effects. 4) Contemplative / Self-Reflective Pedagogy and Counseling