Benjamin Drake Wright
Encyclopedia
Benjamin Drake Wright is an American psychometrician. He is largely responsible for the widespread adoption of Georg Rasch
's measurement principles and models. In the wake of what Rasch referred to as Wright's “almost unbelievable activity in this field” in the period from 1960 to 1972, Rasch's ideas entered the mainstream in high-stakes testing, professional certification and licensure examinations, and in research employing tests, and surveys and assessments across a range of fields. Wright's seminal contributions to measurement continued until 2001, and ranged from articulation of philosophical principles, production of practical results and applications, software development, development of estimation methods and model fit statistics, vigorous support for students and colleagues, and the founding of professional societies and new publications.
, where he was individually given a battery of tests over the course of that summer. The tests were administered by teachers and staff from the Little Red School House
in Greenwich Village
, New York City. Wright subsequently attended Little Red
over the course of grades 2 and 4 to 7. Thus, Wright's education was shaped by early advocates of integrating scientific assessment into the classroom, including Elisabeth Irwin
and Bank Street College founder Lucy Sprague Mitchell. At the time, the Little Red course of study was based on curricula outlined in Mitchell's Here and Now Story Book and Young Geographers.
From 1940 to 1944, Wright attended The Hill School
in Pottstown, Pennsylvania
. In June 1944, at age 18, Wright enlisted in the U.S. Navy. As the result of his score on the Army Navy College Qualifying Test, Wright was assigned to the V-12 Navy College Training Program
and to fulfill his military duty at Cornell University
studying physics. The Cornell physics faculty included Richard Feynman
who, in parallel with John von Neumann
, had begun adapting an IBM business punch card machine to solve the Los Alamos
physicists’ linear equations more quickly. This work led to the modern computer. As well as graduating with Honors from the physics program within three years, Wright's Cornell transcript shows he was awarded 87 additional credit hours “for work in the School of Electrical Engineering…under the V-12 program,” indicating the extent of Wright’s work with early computer prototypes for the US military.
In the summer of 1947, after graduating from Cornell and receiving an honorable discharge from the US Navy, Wright interned at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey
, under the mentorship of Nobel Laureate Charles H. Townes. Townes had begun a series of pioneering studies in microwave spectroscopy, but had no budget for a laboratory assistant. Wright's contributions as an intern led to his first scientific publication, completed before he entered graduate school.
In the fall of 1947, Wright enrolled as a graduate student in the University of Chicago
Physics Department. In January 1948, he was hired as a research assistant to Nobel Laureate Robert S. Mulliken
(1896–1986) at the University's Laboratory of Molecular Structure and Spectra. John R. Platt, known for his work on strong inference
, was his supervisor and Clemens C. J. Roothaan
was his lab partner. Mulliken and his colleagues made pioneering contributions to molecular orbital physics modeling electron waveforms.
Wright continued work as a research assistant with Mulliken and his colleagues until 1951. However, Wright’s interests extended beyond the physics laboratory. He directed a group theater for young adults at the Gads Hill Center
in the Pilsen neighborhood of the Lower West Side, Chicago
and he took classes from psychologist Carl Rogers
and sociologist Lloyd Warner (with whom he would later work at Social Research, Inc.). Wright also attended several lectures given by Louis Thurstone, a pioneer in psychological measurement and psychometrics
.
Believing that understanding how children learn was even more important than understanding molecular structure, in late spring of 1948 Wright made a dramatic shift of focus. He left a major in physics to enroll in the Committee on Human Development. The Committee had been organized in 1940 by then Education Department Chair Ralph W. Tyler
to promote cross disciplinary research, which appealed to the young Wright. In 1951, Wright became a counselor at the Orthogenic School of the University of Chicago, then directed by Bruno Bettelheim
who was also faculty on the Committee on Human Development.
During this period, Wright also earned a Certificate in Psychoanalytic Childcare from the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis
(1954), a Doctorate in Philosophy of Human Development from the University of Chicago
(1957), and an Illinois State license to practice clinical psychology (1959, 1964). Wright and Bettelheim co-authored two papers.
In the mid-1950s, Wright’s neighbor in Chicago was the statistician Leonard Jimmie Savage
. They became close friends. Daily discussions with Savage inspired Wright’s interest in statistics, and in January 1957, Wright began teaching statistics and psychology at the University of Chicago Departments of Education and Psychology. Almost immediately Wright ran into trouble with his departmental colleagues for criticizing the scientific basis of education statistics texts. He would likely have lost his position had not Jimmie Savage intervened on his behalf.
In 1959, the University of Chicago received a gift of a UNIVAC I
(1 kilobyte) vacuum tube computer, and, in 1962, the university received a $2.5 million IBM 7090
main frame computer. The latter took up the entire basement of the Institute for Computer Research at 5640 S. Ellis, Chicago. A computer was a tool then unfamiliar to social scientists. Wright, however, especially in his work with Mulliken
and Roothaan, had experience writing computer programs to glean information from empirical data. He seized the opportunity to write a program to perform factor analysis and regression on the new computer. Wright may then have written and employed the first computer program for factor analysis in the social sciences.
In 1960, Savage invited Georg Rasch
to give a series of 24 lectures on his "models for measurement" at the University of Chicago. The Rasch model
for constructing measures of ability and difficulty on the same scale subsequently became the focus of Wright's career.
work he'd been doing in the late 1950s on semantic differential
data from Chicago area firms' marketing projects. He found the instability of the factors across data sets disconcerting, especially since the lack of a stochastic frame of reference meant there were no standard errors for the factor loadings. Listening to Rasch's lectures in 1960, Wright saw there was another way leading to results that were "stable in terms that a physicist would accept." Extending Rasch's own analogies from James Clerk Maxwell
's analysis of mass, force, and acceleration, Wright subsequently used an everyday yardstick in his teaching to convey measurement concepts simply and clearly.
Over the course of the years 1958–2001, Wright chaired 69 dissertations and served on 52 other dissertation committees. The vast majority of these involved new Rasch models, estimation methods, fit statistics, or data applications. Wright's former students include leaders in psychometrics in academic, commercial, and governmental positions globally, such as Wan Rani Abdullah, Raymond Adams, David Andrich, Betty Bergstrom, Nikolaus Bezruczko, Brian Bontempo, William Boone
, Sunhee Chae, Chih-Hung Chang, Bruce H. Choppin, Graham Douglas, George Engelhard, Jr., Patrick B. Fisher, William P. Fisher, Jr., Richard Gershon
, Dorothea Juul, George Karabatsos, Ross Lambert, John M. Linacre, Larry Ludlow, Geofferey Masters, Ronald Mead, Robert Mislevy, Mark Moulton, Carol Myford, Nargis Panchapakesan, Wendy Rheault, Matthew Schulz, Richard M. Smith, John Stahl, Douglas Stone, Gregory Stone, Donna Surges Tatum, Herbert Walberg, Mark Wilson, Lih Mei Yang, and many others.
Among Wright's students, Bruce H. Choppin stands out as an early and influential advocate of Rasch measurement. Choppin died unexpectedly in Chile in 1983. The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement has conferred the IEA Bruce H. Choppin Memorial Award on new researchers doing innovative work in education-related areas since 1985.
Colleagues influenced by Wright include Pedro Alvarez, Trevor Bond, Abraham Bookstein, David Cella, Anne G. Fisher, Christine Fox, Carl Granger, Kathy Green, Richard F. Harvey, Allen Heinemann, Jeremy Hobart, Ellen Julian, Elena Kardanova, Rense Lange, Alain Leplege, Mary Lunz, Anatoli Maslak, Robert Massof, Magdalena Mok, Fred Shaw, Everett V. Smith, A. Jackson Stenner, Mark Stone
, Alan Tennant, Luigi Tesio, Richard Woodcock, Weimo Zhu, and many others.
1965: CALFIT software written with Bruce H. Choppin and Nargis Panchapakesan, both also former physicists. CALFIT was rewritten about 1974 by Ronald Mead, a student of Wright's, with the assistance of Chris Wright, Wright's son. About the same time the name was changed to BICAL when the binomial model was added. Wright keeps the software in continuous quality improvement mode until 1989, when he assumes a supervisory role and the details of software design and development are taken up by John M. Linacre.
Begins annual courses on Rasch measurement in U of Chicago Departments of Education and Psychology.
Gives presentation on Rasch models to Midwestern Educational Research Association annual meeting.
1967: At the invitation of Benjamin Bloom
, Wright presents Rasch analysis of Law School Admissions Test data at Educational Testing Service
.
1969: Releases new unconditional estimation algorithm and model fit statistics.
Conducts a five-day workshop on Rasch measurement in Los Angeles at the first American Educational Research Association conference presession ever held; there were over 50 attendees, and Rasch gave the concluding lectures.
1977: Publishes early article introducing Rasch measurement innovations in educational measurement, cited 275 times according to Google Scholar as of 24 October 2010.
1979: Founds MESA Press and publishes the landmark Best Test Design with Mark Stone, cited 895 times according to Google Scholar as of 24 October 2010. Develops the concept of the KIDMAP and software for producing it in this period (1978–1982). The KIDMAP concept has subsequently been adopted in other fields as an intuitive way of presenting measurement results.
1980: Facilitates publication of Rasch's 1960 book by the University of Chicago Press.
1981: Organizes and hosts the first International Objective Measurement Workshop. The 15th bi-annual IOMW was held in 2010 at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
1982: MESA Press publishes Rating Scale Analysis by Wright and Geofferey Masters, cited 1,496 times according to Google Scholar as of 24 October 2010.
1988: Co-founds the Rasch Measurement Special Interest Group in the American Educational Research Association with Richard M. Smith.
Publication of Rasch Measurement Transactions begins, with Richard M. Smith as editor; volume 24, number 2, of this quarterly bulletin came out in October, 2010.
1996: Adds new features to software integrating principal components factor analysis with Rasch measurement in evaluation of unidimensionality of measures and model fit, on suggestion of John M. Linacre.
1996: Co-founds, with A. Jackson Stenner, the Institute for Objective Measurement and the http://www.Rasch.org web site; the latter continues to serve as a primary resource for information on Rasch measurement meetings, publications, software, consultants, etc.
2003: First conference celebrating Wright's lifetime career contributions, held at Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago
.
2009: Second conference celebrating Wright's work, also held at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago
and documented in a special issue of the Journal of Applied Measurement
Career Recognition Award in Computer-Based Testing, 2001
Institute for Objective Measurement Lifetime Achievement Award, 2003
6 books and 19 monographs on measurement, 6 books on psychology
11 computer programs
Georg Rasch
Georg Rasch was a Danish mathematician, statistician, and psychometrician, most famous for the development of a class of measurement models known as Rasch models. He studied with R.A. Fisher and also briefly with Ragnar Frisch, and was elected a member of the International Statistical Institute in...
's measurement principles and models. In the wake of what Rasch referred to as Wright's “almost unbelievable activity in this field” in the period from 1960 to 1972, Rasch's ideas entered the mainstream in high-stakes testing, professional certification and licensure examinations, and in research employing tests, and surveys and assessments across a range of fields. Wright's seminal contributions to measurement continued until 2001, and ranged from articulation of philosophical principles, production of practical results and applications, software development, development of estimation methods and model fit statistics, vigorous support for students and colleagues, and the founding of professional societies and new publications.
Biography
Wright was born in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, on March 30, 1926. He retired in October, 2001.Early life and education (1926–1960)
Wright’s experiences at age seven with mental testing sparked his life-long interest in tests and test questions. Wright’s mother, Dorothy Wright (née Wadhams, 1902–1995), was a lifelong advocate of progressive education. In the summer of 1933, his mother sent him to Housatonic Camp in Canaan, ConnecticutCanaan, Connecticut
Canaan is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 1,081 at the 2000 census. The town of Canaan is often referred to locally by the name of its principal constituent village, Falls Village.-Geography:...
, where he was individually given a battery of tests over the course of that summer. The tests were administered by teachers and staff from the Little Red School House
Little Red School House
The Little Red School House and Elisabeth Irwin High School, also referred to as LREI, was founded by Elisabeth Irwin in 1921 in Manhattan, New York City as the Little Red School House, and is regarded as the city's first progressive school...
in Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
, New York City. Wright subsequently attended Little Red
Little Red
Little Red is a rock band from Melbourne, Australia consisting of Adrian Beltrame , Dominic Byrne , Quang Dinh , Tom Hartney and Taka Honda .-Biography:...
over the course of grades 2 and 4 to 7. Thus, Wright's education was shaped by early advocates of integrating scientific assessment into the classroom, including Elisabeth Irwin
Elisabeth Irwin
Elisabeth Antoinette Irwin was the founder of the Little Red School House. She was an educator, psychologist, reformer, and declared lesbian, living with her life partner Katharine Anthony and the two children they adopted.-Biography:Irwin was born in Brooklyn to William Henry Irwin and Josephina...
and Bank Street College founder Lucy Sprague Mitchell. At the time, the Little Red course of study was based on curricula outlined in Mitchell's Here and Now Story Book and Young Geographers.
From 1940 to 1944, Wright attended The Hill School
The Hill School
The Hill School is a preparatory boarding school for boys and girls located in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, about 35 miles northwest of Philadelphia....
in Pottstown, Pennsylvania
Pottstown, Pennsylvania
Pottstown is a borough in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States northwest of Philadelphia and southeast of Reading, on the Schuylkill River. Pottstown was laid out in 1752–53 and named Pottsgrove in honor of its founder, John Potts. The old name was abandoned at the time of the...
. In June 1944, at age 18, Wright enlisted in the U.S. Navy. As the result of his score on the Army Navy College Qualifying Test, Wright was assigned to the V-12 Navy College Training Program
V-12 Navy College Training Program
The V-12 Navy College Training Program was designed to supplement the force of commissioned officers in the United States Navy during World War II...
and to fulfill his military duty at Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
studying physics. The Cornell physics faculty included Richard Feynman
Richard Feynman
Richard Phillips Feynman was an American physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics...
who, in parallel with John von Neumann
John von Neumann
John von Neumann was a Hungarian-American mathematician and polymath who made major contributions to a vast number of fields, including set theory, functional analysis, quantum mechanics, ergodic theory, geometry, fluid dynamics, economics and game theory, computer science, numerical analysis,...
, had begun adapting an IBM business punch card machine to solve the Los Alamos
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory, managed and operated by Los Alamos National Security , located in Los Alamos, New Mexico...
physicists’ linear equations more quickly. This work led to the modern computer. As well as graduating with Honors from the physics program within three years, Wright's Cornell transcript shows he was awarded 87 additional credit hours “for work in the School of Electrical Engineering…under the V-12 program,” indicating the extent of Wright’s work with early computer prototypes for the US military.
In the summer of 1947, after graduating from Cornell and receiving an honorable discharge from the US Navy, Wright interned at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey
Murray Hill, New Jersey
Murray Hill is an unincorporated area within portions of both Berkeley Heights and New Providence, located in Union County in northern New Jersey, United States....
, under the mentorship of Nobel Laureate Charles H. Townes. Townes had begun a series of pioneering studies in microwave spectroscopy, but had no budget for a laboratory assistant. Wright's contributions as an intern led to his first scientific publication, completed before he entered graduate school.
In the fall of 1947, Wright enrolled as a graduate student in the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
Physics Department. In January 1948, he was hired as a research assistant to Nobel Laureate Robert S. Mulliken
Robert S. Mulliken
Robert Sanderson Mulliken was an American physicist and chemist, primarily responsible for the early development of molecular orbital theory, i.e. the elaboration of the molecular orbital method of computing the structure of molecules. Dr. Mulliken received the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1966...
(1896–1986) at the University's Laboratory of Molecular Structure and Spectra. John R. Platt, known for his work on strong inference
Strong inference
In philosophy of science, strong inference is a model of scientific inquiry that emphasises the need for alternative hypotheses, rather than a single hypothesis in order to avoid confirmation bias....
, was his supervisor and Clemens C. J. Roothaan
Clemens C. J. Roothaan
Clemens C.J. Roothaan was born in 1918 in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. He enrolled TU Delft in 1935 to study electrical engineering. During World War II he was first detained as a prisoner of war camp, later he was sent for a year to a concentration camp in Vught...
was his lab partner. Mulliken and his colleagues made pioneering contributions to molecular orbital physics modeling electron waveforms.
Wright continued work as a research assistant with Mulliken and his colleagues until 1951. However, Wright’s interests extended beyond the physics laboratory. He directed a group theater for young adults at the Gads Hill Center
Gads Hill Center
At over 112 years of age, Gads Hill Center is among the oldest and most respected Non-profit youth education and family resource centers on Chicago's South Side...
in the Pilsen neighborhood of the Lower West Side, Chicago
Lower West Side, Chicago
Lower West Side located on the west side of Chicago, Illinois, is one of 77 well-defined Chicago community areas.-Government and infrastructure:The United States Postal Service operates the Pilsen Post Office at 1859 South Ashland Avenue....
and he took classes from psychologist Carl Rogers
Carl Rogers
Carl Ransom Rogers was an influential American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach to psychology...
and sociologist Lloyd Warner (with whom he would later work at Social Research, Inc.). Wright also attended several lectures given by Louis Thurstone, a pioneer in psychological measurement and psychometrics
Psychometrics
Psychometrics is the field of study concerned with the theory and technique of psychological measurement, which includes the measurement of knowledge, abilities, attitudes, personality traits, and educational measurement...
.
Believing that understanding how children learn was even more important than understanding molecular structure, in late spring of 1948 Wright made a dramatic shift of focus. He left a major in physics to enroll in the Committee on Human Development. The Committee had been organized in 1940 by then Education Department Chair Ralph W. Tyler
Ralph W. Tyler
Ralph W. Tyler was an American educator who worked in the field of assessment and evaluation. He served on or advised a number of bodies that set guidelines for the expenditure of federal funds and influenced the underlying policy of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Tyler...
to promote cross disciplinary research, which appealed to the young Wright. In 1951, Wright became a counselor at the Orthogenic School of the University of Chicago, then directed by Bruno Bettelheim
Bruno Bettelheim
Bruno Bettelheim was an Austrian-born American child psychologist and writer. He gained an international reputation for his work on Freud, psychoanalysis, and emotionally disturbed children.-Background:...
who was also faculty on the Committee on Human Development.
During this period, Wright also earned a Certificate in Psychoanalytic Childcare from the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis
Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis
The Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis is a center for psychoanalytic research, training, and education that is located on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago. The institute provides professional training in the theory and practice of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy...
(1954), a Doctorate in Philosophy of Human Development from the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
(1957), and an Illinois State license to practice clinical psychology (1959, 1964). Wright and Bettelheim co-authored two papers.
In the mid-1950s, Wright’s neighbor in Chicago was the statistician Leonard Jimmie Savage
Leonard Jimmie Savage
Leonard Jimmie Savage was an American mathematician and statistician. Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman said Savage was "one of the few people I have met whom I would unhesitatingly call a genius."...
. They became close friends. Daily discussions with Savage inspired Wright’s interest in statistics, and in January 1957, Wright began teaching statistics and psychology at the University of Chicago Departments of Education and Psychology. Almost immediately Wright ran into trouble with his departmental colleagues for criticizing the scientific basis of education statistics texts. He would likely have lost his position had not Jimmie Savage intervened on his behalf.
In 1959, the University of Chicago received a gift of a UNIVAC I
UNIVAC I
The UNIVAC I was the first commercial computer produced in the United States. It was designed principally by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, the inventors of the ENIAC...
(1 kilobyte) vacuum tube computer, and, in 1962, the university received a $2.5 million IBM 7090
IBM 7090
The IBM 7090 was a second-generation transistorized version of the earlier IBM 709 vacuum tube mainframe computers and was designed for "large-scale scientific and technological applications". The 7090 was the third member of the IBM 700/7000 series scientific computers. The first 7090 installation...
main frame computer. The latter took up the entire basement of the Institute for Computer Research at 5640 S. Ellis, Chicago. A computer was a tool then unfamiliar to social scientists. Wright, however, especially in his work with Mulliken
Robert S. Mulliken
Robert Sanderson Mulliken was an American physicist and chemist, primarily responsible for the early development of molecular orbital theory, i.e. the elaboration of the molecular orbital method of computing the structure of molecules. Dr. Mulliken received the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1966...
and Roothaan, had experience writing computer programs to glean information from empirical data. He seized the opportunity to write a program to perform factor analysis and regression on the new computer. Wright may then have written and employed the first computer program for factor analysis in the social sciences.
In 1960, Savage invited Georg Rasch
Georg Rasch
Georg Rasch was a Danish mathematician, statistician, and psychometrician, most famous for the development of a class of measurement models known as Rasch models. He studied with R.A. Fisher and also briefly with Ragnar Frisch, and was elected a member of the International Statistical Institute in...
to give a series of 24 lectures on his "models for measurement" at the University of Chicago. The Rasch model
Rasch model
Rasch models are used for analysing data from assessments to measure variables such as abilities, attitudes, and personality traits. For example, they may be used to estimate a student's reading ability from answers to questions on a reading assessment, or the extremity of a person's attitude to...
for constructing measures of ability and difficulty on the same scale subsequently became the focus of Wright's career.
Contributions to measurement (1960–2001)
Wright was dissatisfied with the results of the factor analysisFactor analysis
Factor analysis is a statistical method used to describe variability among observed, correlated variables in terms of a potentially lower number of unobserved, uncorrelated variables called factors. In other words, it is possible, for example, that variations in three or four observed variables...
work he'd been doing in the late 1950s on semantic differential
Semantic differential
Semantic differential is a type of a rating scale designed to measure the connotative meaning of objects, events, and concepts. The connotations are used to derive the attitude towards the given object, event or concept.-Semantic differential:...
data from Chicago area firms' marketing projects. He found the instability of the factors across data sets disconcerting, especially since the lack of a stochastic frame of reference meant there were no standard errors for the factor loadings. Listening to Rasch's lectures in 1960, Wright saw there was another way leading to results that were "stable in terms that a physicist would accept." Extending Rasch's own analogies from James Clerk Maxwell
James Clerk Maxwell
James Clerk Maxwell of Glenlair was a Scottish physicist and mathematician. His most prominent achievement was formulating classical electromagnetic theory. This united all previously unrelated observations, experiments and equations of electricity, magnetism and optics into a consistent theory...
's analysis of mass, force, and acceleration, Wright subsequently used an everyday yardstick in his teaching to convey measurement concepts simply and clearly.
Over the course of the years 1958–2001, Wright chaired 69 dissertations and served on 52 other dissertation committees. The vast majority of these involved new Rasch models, estimation methods, fit statistics, or data applications. Wright's former students include leaders in psychometrics in academic, commercial, and governmental positions globally, such as Wan Rani Abdullah, Raymond Adams, David Andrich, Betty Bergstrom, Nikolaus Bezruczko, Brian Bontempo, William Boone
William Boone
William Boone was an American football coach in the United States.-Coaching career:Coach William Boone was the head college football coach for the Hillsdale Chargers located in Hillsdale, Michigan. He held that position for the 1906 season. His coaching record at Hillsdale was 0 wins and 7 losses...
, Sunhee Chae, Chih-Hung Chang, Bruce H. Choppin, Graham Douglas, George Engelhard, Jr., Patrick B. Fisher, William P. Fisher, Jr., Richard Gershon
Richard Gershon
I. Richard Gershon is the current Dean of the University of Mississippi School of Law. He came to the University of Mississippi after being the Founding Dean of the Charleston School of Law in Charleston, South Carolina....
, Dorothea Juul, George Karabatsos, Ross Lambert, John M. Linacre, Larry Ludlow, Geofferey Masters, Ronald Mead, Robert Mislevy, Mark Moulton, Carol Myford, Nargis Panchapakesan, Wendy Rheault, Matthew Schulz, Richard M. Smith, John Stahl, Douglas Stone, Gregory Stone, Donna Surges Tatum, Herbert Walberg, Mark Wilson, Lih Mei Yang, and many others.
Among Wright's students, Bruce H. Choppin stands out as an early and influential advocate of Rasch measurement. Choppin died unexpectedly in Chile in 1983. The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement has conferred the IEA Bruce H. Choppin Memorial Award on new researchers doing innovative work in education-related areas since 1985.
Colleagues influenced by Wright include Pedro Alvarez, Trevor Bond, Abraham Bookstein, David Cella, Anne G. Fisher, Christine Fox, Carl Granger, Kathy Green, Richard F. Harvey, Allen Heinemann, Jeremy Hobart, Ellen Julian, Elena Kardanova, Rense Lange, Alain Leplege, Mary Lunz, Anatoli Maslak, Robert Massof, Magdalena Mok, Fred Shaw, Everett V. Smith, A. Jackson Stenner, Mark Stone
Mark Stone
Mark Stone may refer to:* Mark Stone , baritone* Mark Stone , bass guitarist for "Mammoth", 1972–1974* Mark Stone , fictional character* Mark Kennedy , also known as Mark Stone...
, Alan Tennant, Luigi Tesio, Richard Woodcock, Weimo Zhu, and many others.
List of major events
1964: Visit to Rasch in Denmark. Intensive study with Rasch. Rasch's student, Gus Leunbach, took Wright through his Rasch model computer programs.1965: CALFIT software written with Bruce H. Choppin and Nargis Panchapakesan, both also former physicists. CALFIT was rewritten about 1974 by Ronald Mead, a student of Wright's, with the assistance of Chris Wright, Wright's son. About the same time the name was changed to BICAL when the binomial model was added. Wright keeps the software in continuous quality improvement mode until 1989, when he assumes a supervisory role and the details of software design and development are taken up by John M. Linacre.
Begins annual courses on Rasch measurement in U of Chicago Departments of Education and Psychology.
Gives presentation on Rasch models to Midwestern Educational Research Association annual meeting.
1967: At the invitation of Benjamin Bloom
Benjamin Bloom
Benjamin Samuel Bloom was an American educational psychologist who made contributions to the classification of educational objectives and to the theory of mastery-learning...
, Wright presents Rasch analysis of Law School Admissions Test data at Educational Testing Service
Educational Testing Service
Educational Testing Service , founded in 1947, is the world's largest private nonprofit educational testing and assessment organization...
.
1969: Releases new unconditional estimation algorithm and model fit statistics.
Conducts a five-day workshop on Rasch measurement in Los Angeles at the first American Educational Research Association conference presession ever held; there were over 50 attendees, and Rasch gave the concluding lectures.
1977: Publishes early article introducing Rasch measurement innovations in educational measurement, cited 275 times according to Google Scholar as of 24 October 2010.
1979: Founds MESA Press and publishes the landmark Best Test Design with Mark Stone, cited 895 times according to Google Scholar as of 24 October 2010. Develops the concept of the KIDMAP and software for producing it in this period (1978–1982). The KIDMAP concept has subsequently been adopted in other fields as an intuitive way of presenting measurement results.
1980: Facilitates publication of Rasch's 1960 book by the University of Chicago Press.
1981: Organizes and hosts the first International Objective Measurement Workshop. The 15th bi-annual IOMW was held in 2010 at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
1982: MESA Press publishes Rating Scale Analysis by Wright and Geofferey Masters, cited 1,496 times according to Google Scholar as of 24 October 2010.
1988: Co-founds the Rasch Measurement Special Interest Group in the American Educational Research Association with Richard M. Smith.
Publication of Rasch Measurement Transactions begins, with Richard M. Smith as editor; volume 24, number 2, of this quarterly bulletin came out in October, 2010.
1996: Adds new features to software integrating principal components factor analysis with Rasch measurement in evaluation of unidimensionality of measures and model fit, on suggestion of John M. Linacre.
1996: Co-founds, with A. Jackson Stenner, the Institute for Objective Measurement and the http://www.Rasch.org web site; the latter continues to serve as a primary resource for information on Rasch measurement meetings, publications, software, consultants, etc.
2003: First conference celebrating Wright's lifetime career contributions, held at Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago
Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago
The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago , ranked the "#1 Rehabilitation in America" by U.S. News & World Report every year since 1991 is a rehabilitation hospital located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It also operates a network of alliance hospitals and outpatient and day rehabilitation...
.
2009: Second conference celebrating Wright's work, also held at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago
Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago
The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago , ranked the "#1 Rehabilitation in America" by U.S. News & World Report every year since 1991 is a rehabilitation hospital located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It also operates a network of alliance hospitals and outpatient and day rehabilitation...
and documented in a special issue of the Journal of Applied Measurement
Awards
Association of Test PublishersAssociation of Test Publishers
The Association of Test Publishers or ATP is an established non-profit trade association representing providers of tests and assessment tools and/or services related to assessment, selection, screening, certification, licensing, educational or clinical uses....
Career Recognition Award in Computer-Based Testing, 2001
Institute for Objective Measurement Lifetime Achievement Award, 2003
Publications
About 200 journal articles – cited 231 times in 2009.6 books and 19 monographs on measurement, 6 books on psychology
11 computer programs
Select publications
- Adams, R. J., & Wright, B. D. (1994). When does misfit make a difference? In M. Wilson (Ed.), Objective measurement: Theory into practice, Volume 2 (pp. 244–270). Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex.
- Bettelheim, B., & Wright, B. D. (1955, October). Staff development in a treatment institution. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, XXV(4), 705–19.
- Bouchard, E., & Wright, B. D. (1997). Kinesthetic ventures: Informed by the work of F. M. Alexander, Stanislavski, Peirce, & Freud (M. Protzel, Ed.). Chicago: MESA Press.
- Fisher, W. P., Jr., & Wright, B. D. (Eds.). (1994). Applications of probabilistic conjoint measurement. International Journal of Educational Research, 21(6), 557–664.
- Granger, C. V., & Wright, B. D. (1993). Looking ahead to the use of functional assessment in ambulatory physiatric and primary care (C. V. Granger, & G. E. Gresham eds.) [Special issue]. Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Clinics of North America: New Developments in Functional Assessment, 4(3), 595–605.
- Grosse, M. E., & Wright, B. D. (1985). Validity and reliability of true-false tests. Educational & Psychological Measurement, 45(1), 1–13.
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- Wright, B. D. (1968). Introduction. In A. R. Nielsen (Ed.), Lust for learning (pp. 11–15). Thy, Denmark: New Experimental College Press.
- Wright, B. D. (1968). The Sabbath Lecture: Love and order. In A. R. Nielsen & and others (Eds.), Lust for learning (pp. 65–8). Thy, Denmark: New Experimental College Press.
- Wright, B. D. (1968). Sample-free test calibration and person measurement. In Proceedings of the 1967 invitational conference on testing problems (pp. 85–101 http://www.rasch.org/memo1.htm). Princeton, New Jersey: Educational Testing Service.
- Wright, B. D. (1977). Misunderstanding the Rasch model. Journal of Educational Measurement, 14(3), 219–225.
- Wright, B. D. (1977). Solving measurement problems with the Rasch model. Journal of Educational Measurement, 14(2), 97–116 http://www.rasch.org/memo42.htm.
- Wright, B. D. (1984). Despair and hope for educational measurement. Contemporary Education Review, 3(1), 281–288 http://www.rasch.org/memo41.htm.
- Wright, B. D. (1985). Additivity in psychological measurement. In E. Roskam (Ed.), Measurement and personality assessment (pp. 101–112). North Holland: Elsevier Science Ltd.
- Wright, B. D. (1988, Sep). The efficacy of unconditional maximum likelihood bias correction: Comment on Jansen, Van den Wollenberg, and Wierda. Applied Psychological Measurement, 12(3), 315–318.
- Wright, B. D. (1992). The International Objective Measurement Workshops: Past and future. In M. Wilson (Ed.), Objective measurement: Theory into practice, Vol. 1 (pp. 9–28). Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing.
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Organizations and Discussion Lists
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Software
- http://www.assess.com/xcart/product.php?productid=220
- http://www.rummlab.com/
- http://www.winsteps.com/
- http://bearcenter.berkeley.edu/GradeMap/
Instruments and measuring systems
- http://www.ampsintl.com/
- http://www.lexile.com
- http://www.devtestservice.org
- http://www.sportsmeasures.com/index.html
Publications
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Meetings and seminars
- http://www.rasch.org/confer.htm
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Academics
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- http://bearcenter.berkeley.edu/index.php