Rita K. Bode, Ph.D.

Rita K. Bode is a senior research scientist with the Center for Rehabilitation Outcomes Research at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC), a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, and a faculty fellow at the Institute for Health Services Research and Policy Studies, Northwestern University. Dr. Bode completed her doctoral studies in Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago with a specialty in measurement and statistics.

Her background is in educational measurement and she has many years of experience in the psychometric development of instruments in the cognitive and affective domains. Her research interests are now focused on the application of psychometric methods to the development and enhancement of instruments used in medical rehabilitation and quality of life research.

She has published numerous articles on methodological issues, such as the enhancement and calibration of instruments measuring impairment, activities and participation, the development of methods for: adjusting for the use of multiple rating scales within instruments; examining the role of therapy characteristics on functional improvement; and controlling for sample composition in examining sensitivity to change. She is currently involved in the development of quality of life item banks and their use in computer adaptive testing.