About

Gonzalo Constante Flores is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. His research focuses on developing theory, algorithms, and software for large-scale optimization and machine learning, with applications in power and energy systems, critical infrastructure, and electricity markets. Before joining CU Boulder, he was a Postdoctoral Scholar at Purdue University. He earned his Ph.D. (2022) and M.S. (2018) degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from The Ohio State University, and a B.E. (2014) in Power Engineering from Escuela Politécnica Nacional, Ecuador. He has received several honors, including a Fulbright Scholarship (U.S. Department of State), a Presidential Fellowship (The Ohio State University), and recognition as a finalist for the 2024 IEEE PES Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Sociology
• Psychology
• Political Science
• Social Science
• Social psychology
• Biology
• Engineering ethics
• Linguistics
• Epistemology
• Knowledge management
• Law
• Pedagogy
• Applied psychology
• Cognitive psychology

Selected publications

• Building the Conceptual Foundations of Culturally Responsive Assessment

  2025-02-27 · 1 citations

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  I view this section’s chapters as a sample of current theoretical work on culturally responsive assessment. Committed to fairness and social justice, all chapters offer different (yet not incompatible) theoretical perspectives on a wide range of issues (e.g., cognition, learning, justice). I examined the chapters’ coverage of six assessment process components (Policy and Legislation, Normative Documents, Test Development, and Adaptation, Testing and Test Administration, Data Analysis, and Uses and Consequences) elsewhere discussed as critical to culturally responsive assessment. I found that each chapter covers only a set of assessment process components—which indicates that current theoretical work has yet to consider important aspects of culturally responsive assessment. I also found that, whereas five of the chapter’s theoretical contributions are descriptive (they organize and make sense of facts and knowledge), only one chapter’s theoretical contribution is prescriptive (it identifies what needs to be done and how). More theoretical work on culturally responsive assessment is needed to guide the thinking and actions of professionals in the field of assessment. I submit that future theoretical work should also examine the indissociability of construct and culture, the relationship between cultural heterogeneity and score variance, and the training of psychometricians on cultural responsiveness.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Cultural Validity

  2025-04-22 · 1 citations

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter discusses cultural validity in assessment practices in both large-scale testing and classroom assessment. Cultural validity is defined as the extent to which the process of assessment addresses the cultural influences that shape how students interpret test items and respond to them and how they learn and participate in assessment activities in the classroom. Critical issues in cultural validity include: the difficulty of knowing each student’s unique cultural background, the semiotic complexity of test items and assessment activities, and the sampling and representation of diverse students at all stages in the assessment process. We discuss the challenges that limit the adoption of culturally valid assessment practices and the transformations that need to take place in assessment practices if we are to ensure cultural validity and fairness in the assessment of diverse populations. Also, we propose some analytical approaches that allow systematic examination of cultural validity in assessment practices.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• How equally do teachers distribute their attention across students classified as English learners (ELs) and their non-EL peers in science classrooms? A frequency analysis of monolingual and bilingual teachers’ interactions with different student grouping configurations

  International Multilingual Research Journal · 2024-01-16 · 5 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  We address the notion that different student grouping configurations in the classroom may provide different sets of opportunities for English learners (ELs) – students whose home language is not English (the language of instruction in the U.S.) – to both learn science and develop a second language through different forms of social interaction. We examined the frequency with which monolingual and bilingual (English-Spanish) teachers interacted with students working in four grouping configurations: Only ELs, Whole Class, Only Non-ELs, and Mixed (both ELs and non-ELs). We used a sample of 359 instructional episodes from 78 science lessons taught by bilingual and English-only teachers in the U.S. While we observed a considerable variation in the frequency of different classroom practices (e.g. those promoting critical thinking were less frequent than those involving factual knowledge), Whole Class was the grouping configuration most frequently observed for all classroom practices. The same frequency patterns were observed for monolingual and bilingual teachers. We argue that the low frequency of teachers' interactions with students working in small groups limits the opportunity for ELs to learn science through different forms of social interaction and for teachers to identify and address individual EL students' learning needs.

  PublisherDOI

• Construct overlap in cross-national assessment: critical thinking in the teacher education curricula of two countries

  Journal of Curriculum Studies · 2024-02-08 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access

  Primary objective: The significance of critical thinking (CT) has grown worldwide in recent years. In teacher education, for example, educators are expected to impart this skill to students but we lack comprehensive international comparative research on CT in pre-service teachers. To begin to develop such assessments, we comparatively analysed CT in Colombia’s and Switzerland’s teacher education intended curricula. Research design and methodology: We examined 384 curriculum documents at the national (macro), institutional (meso), and course-specific (micro) levels. The documents included 73 from Colombia and 311 from Switzerland. We also conducted interviews with nine teacher educators, four from Colombia and five from Switzerland. Results: Our analysis revealed that while both countries provide similar opportunities for student teachers to acquire CT skills, there are differences in the percentage of documents that reflect CT or any of its facets, and few university courses include several CT facets. Conclusion: Our findings suggest the possibility for international CT assessment with appropriate cultural and contextual adaptations. However, the results also highlight the need for better alignment within training curricula and a more cohesive approach to CT, ensuring that CT is not only mentioned in official macro-level documents but is also comprehensively integrated into the micro level.

  PublisherDOI

• Test translation review: a study on discussion processes and translation error detection in consensus-based review panels

  Frontiers in Education · 2023-12-14 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  We examined the discussion processes through which two independent consensus-based review panels detected errors in the same sample of items from an international test translated from English to Chinese. The discussion processes were defined according to four events: (1) identifying a potential error; and (2) agreeing with , (3) disagreeing with , and (4) elaborating an opinion expressed by other panelists. We found that, while the two panels had similar error detection rates, only half of the errors detected by the two panels altogether were detected by both panels. In addition, of the errors detected by the two panels, more than half were detected by the panels through different discussion processes. No discussion process occurred substantially more frequently or less frequently for any translation error dimension. We conclude that the unique combination of backgrounds, skills, and communication styles of panel members and the unique combination of textual features in each item shape which errors each panel is capable of detecting. While panels can be highly effective in detecting errors, one single panel may not be sufficient to detect all possible errors in a given set of translated items. Consensus-based translation error review panels should not be assumed to be exchangeable.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• How Serious are We About Fairness in Testing and How Far are We Willing to Go? A Response to Randall and Bennett with Reflections About the <i>Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing</i>

  Educational Assessment · 2023 · 12 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Political Science
  • Psychology

  Jennifer Randall’s paper on justice-oriented assessment and Randy Bennett’s paper on socioculturally responsive assessment address fairness in the testing of racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse student populations by providing principles and recommendations for improved assessment practice. I warn about the perils of assuming that principles and recommendations suffice to promote fair testing in the absence of serious changes in the entire process of assessment. I liken the limitations of this over-reliance on principles and recommendations to the limitations of the fairness chapter of the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, whose wording portraits actions to address fairness in testing as optional. A transformative agenda on assessment practice needs to be based on a systemic perspective that involves all components and stages in the assessment process and needs to aim to produce a paradigm shift that establishes more rigorous expectations about what counts as fairness in assessment.

  PublisherDOI

• The design of mathematics testing accommodations for second language learners: semiotic exchangeability of translation and illustration pop-up glossaries in computer-administered tests

  International Multilingual Research Journal · 2023-02-23 · 3 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  We examined semiotic exchangeability in pop-up glossary translations and illustrations used as supports for second language learners (SLLs) in computer-administered mathematics tests. In a sample of 516 mathematics items, Grades 3–8 and 11, from a large-scale assessment program in the US, test developers identified terms that could be translated and terms that could be illustrated without altering the target constructs. In each item, we examined: number of unique words (w), number of unique terms identified for translation (t), and number of unique terms identified for illustration (i.) Of the 3,186 terms identified for translation or for illustration, only about one sixth were identified both for translation and for illustration. We observed statistically significant w and t differences attributable to the main effect of depth of knowledge and type of item and statistically significant i differences attributable to the main effect of type of item. The correlation of item translatability (T = t/w) and item illustratability (I = i/w) was low for all items combined but higher and statistically significant for some types of items and for greater values of depth of knowledge. We conclude that translation and illustration pop-up glossaries are functionally different sets of semiotic resources that support SLLs in different ways.

  PublisherDOI

• Fairness in Testing:

  2022-05-25 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• How different are English learners from their native <i>English</i>-speaking peers? Evidence of equivalent lexical competence in classroom conversations

  International Multilingual Research Journal · 2022-09-05 · 2 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Long-term English learners’ mathematics course trajectories: downstream consequences of early remediation on college preparation

  International Multilingual Research Journal · 2022-10-26 · 3 citations

  articleSenior author

  We investigated how high school mathematics course placement contributes to inequalities in college preparation for students categorized as “English Learners” (ELs), especially “long-term” English Learners (LTELs). We devised a base-2 enumeration approach that allowed us to process complex transcript data from one school district and enumerate the thousands of possible trajectories (combinations) of mathematics courses taken by students during high school. We observed significant disparities in college preparation across students by English proficiency designation. In comparison to English Only (EO) students, LTELs were funneled into fewer trajectories that predominantly included lower level mathematics courses. We found that enrollment into remedial mathematics courses in Grade 9 appears to restrict access to advanced courses, with grave consequences for Grade 12 college preparation.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Richard J. Shavelson

  Stanford University

  12 shared

• Chao Wang

  Tianjin University

  8 shared

• Rachel Kachchaf

  Biological Sciences Curriculum Study

  6 shared

• Maria Araceli Ruiz‐Primo

  5 shared

• Steven Schneider

  Wested

  5 shared

• Kadriye Ercikan

  Global Embedded Technologies (United States)

  4 shared

• Stephen P. Klein

  4 shared

• Min Li

  Harbin Medical University

  4 shared

Education

• Other, Power Engineering

  Escuela Politécnica Nacional

  2014

• M.S., Electrical and Computer Engineering

  The Ohio State University

  2018

• Ph.D., Electrical and Computer Engineering

  The Ohio State University

  2022

Awards & honors

• Fulbright Scholarship (U.S. Department of State)
• Presidential Fellowship (The Ohio State University)
• Finalist for the 2024 IEEE PES Outstanding Doctoral Disserta…