Benjamin Drake Wright (March 30, 1926 – October 25, 2015) was an American

psychometrician Psychometrics is a field of study within psychology concerned with the theory and technique of measurement. Psychometrics generally refers to specialized fields within psychology and education devoted to testing, measurement, assessment, and ...

. He is largely responsible for the widespread adoption of

Georg Rasch Georg William Rasch () (21 September 1901 – 19 October 1980) 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 a ...

's measurement principles and models.Rasch, G. (1988/1972, Summer). Review of the cooperation of Professor B. D. Wright, University of Chicago, and Professor G. Rasch, University of Copenhagen; letter of June 18, 1972. Rasch Measurement Transactions, 2(2), 1

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 included 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 Wilkes-Barre ( or ) is a city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, Luzerne County. Located at the center of the Wyoming Valley in Northeastern Pennsylvania, it had a population of 44,328 in th ...

, 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 lifelong interest in tests and test questions. Wright's mother, Dorothy Wright (née Wadhams, 1902–1995), was a lifelong advocate of progressive education.A descendant of Mayflower era Calvinists, Wright’s ancestor, the Reverend Noah Wadhams (1726–1806) was a Congregationalist minister to the pioneer Susquehanna Company settlement of what is now

during the era of the Pennamite-Yankee War and the

Battle of Wyoming The Battle of Wyoming, also known as the Wyoming Massacre, was a military engagement during the American Revolutionary War between Patriot militiamen and a mixed force of Loyalist soldiers and Iroquois raiders. The clash took place in the Wyom ...

(Wadhams, H. W. S. (1913). Wadhams genealogy: Preceded by a sketch of the Wadham family in England. New York: Frank Allaben Genealogical Co., p. 50). Noah was a brother-in-law to the Reverend Samuel Hopkins (1721-1803), a leading spokesperson for New Divinity theology during the

First Great Awakening The First Great Awakening (sometimes Great Awakening) or the Evangelical Revival was a series of Christian revivals that swept Britain and its thirteen North American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s. The revival movement permanently affecte ...

and whose writings formed the theological basis of the

Second Great Awakening The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant religious revival during the early 19th century in the United States. The Second Great Awakening, which spread religion through revivals and emotional preaching, sparked a number of reform movements. R ...

. Hopkins was an early abolitionist and, like his mentor Jonathan Edwards, a staunch advocate for a quality education for everyone, including indigenous Americans, slaves, former slaves, and women. In the summer of 1933, his mother sent him to Housatonic Camp in

Canaan, Connecticut Canaan is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 1,080 at the 2020 census, down from 1,234 at the 2010 census. The town of Canaan is often referred to locally by the name of its principal settlement, Falls V ...

, 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 The Little Red School House and Elisabeth Irwin High School, also referred to as LREI, is a school in Manhattan, New York City. It was founded by Elisabeth Irwin in 1921 as the Little Red School House and is one of the city's first progressive s ...

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. 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 Elisabeth Antoinette Irwin (29 August 1880, Brooklyn, New York–16 October 1942, Manhattan, age 62) was the founder of the Little Red School House. She was an educator, psychologist, reformer, and declared lesbian, living with her life partner ...

and

Bank Street College Bank Street College of Education is a private school and graduate school in New York City. It consists of a graduate-only teacher training college and an independent nursery-through-8th-grade school. In 2020 the graduate school had about 65 full ...

founde
Lucy Sprague Mitchell
Antler, J. (1982). Progressive education and the scientific study of the child: An analysis of th

, 1916–1930. Teachers College Record, 83 (4), 559–591. 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.Mitchell, L. S. (1921). Here and Now Story Book. New York: E.P. Dutton & Company; Mitchell, L. S. (1934). Young Geographers: How they explore the world & how they map the world. New York: Bank Street College; de Lima, A. (1942). The Little Red School House. New York: The Macmillan Company; O'Han, N. (2009). The little school that could: Tough economic times created the rationale for one school lectronic Version Independent School, 68. Retrieved July 1, 2009

From 1940 to 1944, Wright attended

The Hill School The Hill School (commonly known as The Hill) is a coeducational preparatory boarding school located on a campus in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, about northwest of Philadelphia. The Hill is part of the Ten Schools Admissions Organization (TSAO). ...

Pottstown, Pennsylvania Pottstown is a borough in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. 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 incorporation as a borough in 1815. In 1888 ...

. 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 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. Between July 1, 1943, and June 30, 1946, more than 125,000 participants were enrolled in 131 colleg ...

and to fulfill his military duty at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

studying physics.Ironically, the AMNCQT was administered by

Henry Chauncey Henry Chauncey (February 9, 1905 – December 3, 2002) was a founder and the first president of the Educational Testing Service (ETS). He graduated from Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy L ...

. This was the precursor for

Educational Testing Service Educational Testing Service (ETS), founded in 1947, is the world's largest private nonprofit educational testing and assessment organization. It is headquartered in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, but has a Princeton address. ETS develops var ...

's administration of the

SAT The SAT ( ) is a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the United States. Since its debut in 1926, its name and scoring have changed several times; originally called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, it was later called the Schol ...

. Chauncey would co-found the

shortly after the war (Lemann, N.

000 Triple zero, Triple Zero, Zero Zero Zero, Triple 0, Triple-0, 000, or 0-0-0 may refer to: * 000 (emergency telephone number), the Australian emergency telephone number * "Triple Zero", a song by AFI (band), AFI from ''Shut Your Mouth and Open Your ...

The big test: The secret history of the American meritocracy. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux., pp.54–57). The Cornell physics faculty included

Richard Feynman Richard Phillips Feynman (; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist, known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of the superflu ...

who, in parallel with

John von Neumann John von Neumann (; hu, Neumann János Lajos, ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. He was regarded as having perhaps the widest cove ...

, had begun adapting an IBM business punch card machine to solve the Los Alamos physicists’ linear equations more quickly.Kelly, C. C., & Gray, C. (2004). From the birth of scientific computing to today's PCs via the Manhattan Project lectronic Version Retrieved 4/20/200

/ref> 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 Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...

Murray Hill, New Jersey Murray Hill is an unincorporated community located within portions of both Berkeley Heights and New Providence, located in Union County in northern New Jersey, United States. It is the longtime central location of Bell Labs (part of Nokia si ...

, under the mentorship of Nobel Laureate

Charles H. Townes Charles Hard Townes (July 28, 1915 – January 27, 2015) was an American physicist. Townes worked on the theory and application of the maser, for which he obtained the fundamental patent, and other work in quantum electronics associated wi ...

. Townes had begun a series of pioneering studies in microwave spectroscopy,Townes, C. H. (1999). How the laser happened: Adventures of a scientist. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, pp. 43–46). 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.Townes, C. H., Merritt, F. R., & Wright, B. D. (1948). The pure rotational spectrum of ICL. Physical Review, 73, 1334–1337. In the fall of 1947, Wright enrolled as a graduate student in the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

Physics Department. In January 1948, he was hired as a research assistant to Nobel Laureate

Robert S. Mulliken Robert Sanderson Mulliken Note Longuet-Higgins' amusing title for reference B238 1965 on page 354 of this Biographical Memoir. The title should be "Selected papers of Robert S Mulliken." (June 7, 1896 – October 31, 1986) was an American ph ...

(1896–1986) at the university's Laboratory of Molecular Structure and Spectra.

John R. Platt ''For other people named John Platt, see John Platt.'' John Rader Platt (June 29, 1918 – June 17, 1992) was an American physicist and biophysicist, professor at the University of Chicago, noted for his pioneering work on st ...

, known for his work on strong inference, was his supervisor and

Clemens C. J. Roothaan Clemens C. J. Roothaan (August 29, 1918 – June 17, 2019) was a Dutch physicist and chemist known for his development of the self-consistent field theory of molecular structure. Biography Roothaan was born in Nijmegen. He enrolled TU Delft in 19 ...

was his lab partner. Mulliken and his colleagues made pioneering contributions to molecular orbital physics modeling electron waveforms.Roothaan, C. C. J. (1951). New developments in molecular orbital theory. Reviews of Modern Physics, 23(2), 69–89. Wright continued work as a research assistant with Mulliken and his colleagues until 1951.Wright, B. D. (1988). George Rasch and measurement. Rasch Measurement Transactions, 2(3), 25–3

/ref> 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 is a non-profit youth education and family resource center on Chicago's South Side, United States, established in 1898. With its headquarters in Chicago, Gads Hill Center serves families in the Chicago neighborhoods of Lower Wes ...

in the Pilsen neighborhood of the

Lower West Side, Chicago Lower West Side is a community area on the West Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is three miles southwest of the Chicago Loop and its main neighborhood is Pilsen (). The Heart of Chicago is a neighborhood in the southwest corner of ...

and he took classes from psychologist

Carl Rogers Carl Ransom Rogers (January 8, 1902 – February 4, 1987) was an American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach (and client-centered approach) in psychology. Rogers is widely considered one of the founding fathers of ps ...

and sociologist

Lloyd Warner William Lloyd Warner (October 26, 1898 – May 23, 1970) was a pioneering anthropologist and sociologist noted for applying the techniques of British functionalism to understanding American culture. Background William Lloyd Warner was born in ...

(with whom he would later work at Social Research Inc.). Wright also attended several lectures given by

Louis Thurstone Louis Leon Thurstone (29 May 1887 – 29 September 1955) was an American pioneer in the fields of psychometrics and psychophysics. He conceived the approach to measurement known as the law of comparative judgment, and is well known for his cont ...

, a pioneer in psychological measurement and

psychometrics Psychometrics is a field of study within psychology concerned with the theory and technique of measurement. Psychometrics generally refers to specialized fields within psychology and education devoted to testing, measurement, assessment, and ...

. 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 (1902–1994) 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 t ...

to promote cross disciplinary research,Lagemann, E. C. (2002). An elusive science: The troubling history of education research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 150ff. 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 (August 28, 1903 – March 13, 1990) was an Austrian-born psychologist, scholar, public intellectual and writer who spent most of his academic and clinical career in the United States. An early writer on autism, Bettelheim's wo ...

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 The Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute (formerly Institute for Psychoanalysis until it was renamed in May 2018) is a center for psychoanalytic research, training, and education on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago. The institute provides professio ...

(1954), a Doctorate in Philosophy of Human Development from the

(1957), and an Illinois State license to practice clinical psychology (1959, 1964). Wright and Bettelheim co-authored two papers.Bettelheim, B., & Wright, B. D. (1955, October). Staff development in a treatment institution. ''

American Journal of Orthopsychiatry The ''American Journal of Orthopsychiatry'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed medical journal covering orthopsychiatry. It is published by the American Psychological Association on behalf of the Global Alliance for Behavioral Health and Social Justice ...

'', XXV(4), 705–19.Wright, B. D., & Bettelheim, B. (1957, March). Professional identity and personal rewards in teaching. The Elementary School Journal, LVII, 297–307. In the mid-1950s, Wright's neighbor in Chicago was the statistician

Leonard Jimmie Savage Leonard Jimmie Savage (born Leonard Ogashevitz; 20 November 1917 – 1 November 1971) was an American mathematician and statistician. Economist Milton Friedman said Savage was "one of the few people I have met whom I would unhesitatingly call a ge ...

. 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 Savage intervened on his behalf.Linacre, J. M. (1998). Ben Wright: The measure of the man. Popular Measurement, Spring, 23–2

/ref> In 1959, the University of Chicago received a gift of a

UNIVAC I The UNIVAC I (Universal Automatic Computer I) was the first general-purpose electronic digital computer design for business application produced in the United States. It was designed principally by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, the invento ...

(1 kilobyte) vacuum tube computer, and, in 1962, the university received a $2.5 million

IBM 7090 The IBM 7090 is a second-generation transistorized version of the earlier IBM 709 vacuum tube mainframe computer that was designed for "large-scale scientific and technological applications". The 7090 is the fourth member of the IBM 700/7000 ser ...

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.Lewis, R. (1962, October 27). U. of C. 'brain' makes debut, spurts answers with electronic ease. Chicago Tribune In 1960, Savage invited

to give a series of 24 lectures on his "models for measurement" at the University of Chicago.Andrich, D. (1995). Rasch and Wright: The early years (transcript of a 1981 interview with Ben Wright). In J. M. Linacre (Ed.), Rasch Measurement Transactions, Part 1 (pp. 1–4

Chicago, Illinois: MESA Press. The

Rasch model The Rasch model, named after Georg Rasch, is a psychometric model for analyzing categorical data, such as answers to questions on a reading assessment or questionnaire responses, as a function of the trade-off between the respondent's abilities, at ...

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 analysis Factor analysis is a statistical method used to describe variability among observed, correlated variables in terms of a potentially lower number of unobserved variables called factors. For example, it is possible that variations in six observed ...

work he'd been doing in the late 1950s on

semantic differential The semantic differential (SD) is a measurement scale designed to measure a person's subjective perception of, and affective reactions to, the properties of concepts, objects, and events by making use of a set of bipolar scales. The SD is used to a ...

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 (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish mathematician and scientist responsible for the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, which was the first theory to describe electricity, magnetism and ligh ...

's analysis of mass, force, and acceleration,Rasch, G. (1960). Probabilistic models for some intelligence and attainment tests (reprint, with Foreword and Afterword by B. D. Wright, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980). Copenhagen, Denmark: Danmarks Paedogogiske Institut. 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 David Andrich is an Australian academic and assessment specialist. He has made substantial contributions to quantitative social science including seminal work on the Polytomous Rasch model for measurement, which is used in the social sciences, ...

Betty Bergstrom Betty or Bettie is a name, a common diminutive for the name, names Bethany (given name), Bethany and Elizabeth (given name), Elizabeth. In Latin America, it is also a common diminutive for the given name Beatriz, the Spanish and Portuguese form of ...

, Nikolaus Bezruczko
Brian BontempoOng Kim Lee
Sunhee Chae, Chih-Hung Chang
Bruce H. Choppin
Yi Du, Graham Douglas
George Engelhard, Jr.Patrick B. Fisher
Dorothea Juul
George Karabatsos
Ross Lambert
John M. LinacreGeofferey Masters

Ronald Mead Ronald is a masculine given name derived from the Old Norse ''Rögnvaldr'', Hanks; Hardcastle; Hodges (2006) p. 234; Hanks; Hodges (2003) § Ronald. or possibly from Old English '' Regenweald''. In some cases ''Ronald'' is an Anglicised form o ...

, Robert Mislevy, Mark Moulton
Carol Myford
Nargis Panchapakesan
Wendy Rheault

Matthew Schulz Matthew may refer to: * Matthew (given name) * Matthew (surname) * ''Matthew'' (ship), the replica of the ship sailed by John Cabot in 1497 * ''Matthew'' (album), a 2000 album by rapper Kool Keith * Matthew (elm cultivar), a cultivar of the Ch ...

Richard M. Smith

John Stahl John Macdonald Steele (23 June 1953 – 2 March 2022), better known as John Stahl, was a Scottish actor best known for playing Rickard Karstark in HBO's '' Game of Thrones'' and Tom 'Inverdarroch' Kerr in '' High Road''. Life and career Stah ...

, Douglas Stone
Gregory Stone
Donna Surges Tatum
Herbert Walberg
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, B. (1968). An item bank using sample-free calibration. Nature, 219, 870–872..Postlethwaite, T. N. (Ed.) (1985). In Memoriam: Bruce Choppin pecial issue Evaluation in Education: An International Review Series, 9(1). 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 CellaAnne G. Fisher

Carl Granger Carl may refer to: *Carl, Georgia, city in USA *Carl, West Virginia, an unincorporated community * Carl (name), includes info about the name, variations of the name, and a list of people with the name *Carl², a TV series * "Carl", an episode of te ...

, Kathy Green, Richard F. Harvey
Allen Heinemann

Ellen Julian Ellen is a female given name, a diminutive of Elizabeth, Eleanor, Elena and Helen. Ellen was the 609th most popular name in the U.S. and the 17th in Sweden in 2004. People named Ellen include: *Ellen Adarna (born 1988), Filipino actress *Ellen A ...

, Elena Kardanova,

Rense Lange Jeffry Shearer Rense is an American radio talk-show host. His show, the ''Jeff Rense Program'', was broadcast via satellite radio and is now released through his personal website. Rense's radio program and website propagate conspiracy theories ...

, Alain Leplege, Mary Lunz,

Anatoli Maslak Anatoli ( el, Ανατολή) is a town and a former municipality in the Ioannina regional unit, Epirus, Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southe ...

Robert MassofMagdalena Mok
Fred Shaw
Everett V. SmithA. Jackson Stenner
Mark Stone
Alan Tennant
Luigi Tesio,

Richard Woodcock Richard Wesley Woodcock (born January 29, 1928) is an American psychometrician. He is known for his work on the Cattell–Horn–Carroll theory of human intelligence and for his work in the development of several cognitive tests, including the Wo ...

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 kept the software in continuous quality improvement mode until 1989, when he assumed a supervisory role and the details of software design and development were taken up by John M. Linacre. Began annual courses on Rasch measurement in U of Chicago Departments of Education and Psychology. Gave presentation on Rasch models to Midwestern Educational Research Association annual meeting. 1967: At the invitation of

Benjamin Bloom Benjamin Samuel Bloom (February 21, 1913 – September 13, 1999) was an American educational psychologist who made contributions to the classification of educational objectives and to the theory of mastery learning. He is particularly noted ...

, Wright presented Rasch analysis of

Law School Admissions Test The Law School Admission Test (LSAT; ) is a standardized test administered by the Law School Admission Council (LSAC) for prospective law school candidates. It is designed to assess reading comprehension as well as logical reasoning, logic ...

data at

.Wright, B. D. (1968). Sample-free test calibration and person measurement. In Proceedings of the 1967 invitational conference on testing problems (pp. 85–10

. Princeton, New Jersey: Educational Testing Service. 1969: Released new unconditional estimation algorithm and model fit statistics.Wright, B. D., & Panchapakesan, N. (1969). A procedure for sample-free item analysis. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 29(1), 23–48. Conducted 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: Published early article introducing Rasch measurement innovations in educational measurement, cited 747 times according to Google Scholar as of 18 November 2019.Wright, B. D. (1977). Solving measurement problems with the Rasch model. Journal of Educational Measurement, 14(2), 97–11

1979: Founds MESA Press and published the landmark ''Best Test Design'' with Mark Stone, cited 3,130 times according to Google Scholar as of 18 November 2019.Wright, B. D., & Stone, M. H. (1979). Best test design: Rasch measurement. Chicago, Illinois: MESA Press. Developed the concept of the KIDMAP and software for producing it in this period (1978–1982).Masters, G. N. (1994). KIDMAP - a history. Rasch Measurement Transactions, 8(2), 36

The KIDMAP concept has subsequently been adopted in other fields as an intuitive way of presenting measurement results.Chien, T.-W., Wang, W.-C., Wang, H.-Y., & Lin, H.-J. (2009). Online assessment of patients' views on hospital performances using Rasch model's KIDMAP diagram. BMC Health Services Research, 9, 135. 10.1186/1472-6963-9-13

1980: Facilitated publication of Rasch's 1960 book by the University of Chicago Press. 1981: Organized and hosted the first International Objective Measurement Workshop.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. IOMW continues to be a forum for new developments in measurement theory and practice, with plans for th
20th meeting
to be held at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2020. 1982: MESA Press published ''Rating Scale Analysis'' by Wright and Geofferey Masters, cited 4,049 times according to Google Scholar as of 18 November 2019.Wright, B. D., & Masters, G. N. (1982). Rating scale analysis: Rasch measurement. Chicago, Illinois: MESA Press. 1988: Co-founded the Rasch Measurement Special Interest Group in the American Educational Research Association with Richard M. Smith. Publication o
Rasch Measurement Transactions
begins, with Richard M. Smith as editor; volume 32, number 4, of this quarterly bulletin came out in late 2019. 1996: Added 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.Linacre, J. M. (1998). Structure in Rasch residuals: Why principal components analysis? Rasch Measurement Transactions, 12(2), 63

1996: Co-founded, with

A. Jackson Stenner A is the first letter of the Latin and English alphabet. A may also refer to: Science and technology Quantities and units * ''a'', a measure for the attraction between particles in the Van der Waals equation * ''A'' value, a measure of ...

, the Institute for Objective Measurement and the http://www.Rasch.org web site; the latter continued 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. A selection of papers from this conference focusing on personal accounts from Wright's students and colleagues was published in 2017.Wilson, M., & Fisher, W. (Eds.). (2017). Psychological and social measurement: The career and contributions of Benjamin D. Wright. (Springer Series in Measurement Science and Technology. M. G. Cain, G. B. Rossi, J. Tesai, M. van Veghel, & K.-Y. Jhang, Eds.) Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-67304-2 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 MeasurementBezruczko, N. (2010). Foreword to the special issue on improving efficiency in outcome measurement: Emergence of efficiency in health outcome measurement. Journal of Applied Measurement, 11(3), 197–213.

Awards

Association of Test Publishers The Association of Test Publishers or ATP is an established non-profit Industry trade group, trade association representing providers of Test (assessment), tests and assessment tools and/or services related to assessment, selection, screening, cer ...

Career Recognition Award in Computer-Based Testing, 2001Association of Test Publishers. (2001, Fall). Association of Test Publisher

, (Accessed 27/06/2010). Institute for Objective Measurement Lifetime Achievement Award, 2003Wright, B. D. (2003). Benjamin D. Wright: Lifetime Achievement Award. Rasch Measurement Transactions, 17(1), 90

/ref>

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. ''

'', 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.) pecial 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. * Grosse, M. E., & Wright, B. D. (1986, Sep). Setting, evaluating, and maintaining certification standards with the Rasch model. Evaluation & the Health Professions, 9(3), 267–285. * Grosse, M. E., & Wright, B. D. (1988). Psychometric characteristics of scores on a patient management problem test. Educational & Psychological Measurement, 48(2), 297–305. * Levinsohn, F. H., & Wright, B. D. (Eds.) (1976). School desegregation: Shadow and substance (pp. 1–5). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. * Linacre, J. M., & Wright, B. D. (2002). Understanding Rasch measurement: Construction of measures from many-facet data. Journal of Applied Measurement, 3(4), 486–512. * Masters, G. N., & Wright, B. D. (1984, Dec). The essential process in a family of measurement models. Psychometrika, 49(4), 529–544. * Masters, G. N., & Wright, B. D. (1997). The partial credit model. In W. J. van der Linden & R. K. Hambleton (Eds.), Handbook of modern item response theory (pp. 101–21). New York: Springer-Verlag. * Perline, R., Wright, B. D., & Wainer, H. (1979, Spring). The Rasch model as additive conjoint measurement. Applied Psychological Measurement, 3(2), 237–255. * Townes, C. H., Merritt, F. R., & Wright, B. D. (1948). The pure rotational spectrum of ICL. Physical Review, 73, 1334–37. * Wright, B. D. (1958, April). On behalf of a personal approach to learning. The Elementary School Journal, 58(7), 365–75. * 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. 85–10

. 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), 97–11

* Wright, B. D. (1984). Despair and hope for educational measurement. Contemporary Education Review, 3(1), 281–28

* 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. * Wright, B. D. (1996). Comparing Rasch measurement and factor analysis. Structural Equation Modeling, 3(1), 3–24. * Wright, B. D. (1996). Composition analysis: Teams, packs, chains. In G. Engelhard & M. Wilson (Eds.), Objective measurement: Theory into practice, Vol. 3 (pp. 241–26

. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex. * Wright, B. D. (1997, June). Fundamental measurement for outcome evaluation. Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation State of the Art Reviews, 11(2), 261–88. * Wright, B. D. (1997, Winter). A history of social science measurement. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 16(4), 33–45, 5

* Wright, B. D. (1999). Fundamental measurement for psychology. In S. E. Embretson & S. L. Hershberger (Eds.), The new rules of measurement: What every educator and psychologist should know (pp. 65–10

. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. * Wright, B. D. (1999). Rasch measurement models. In G. N. Masters & J. P. Keeves (Eds.), Advances in measurement in educational research and assessment (pp. 85–97). New York: Pergamon. * Wright, B. D., & Bell, S. R. (1984, Winter). Item banks: What, why, how. Journal of Educational Measurement, 21(4), 331–34

* Wright, B. D., & Bettelheim, B. (1957, March). Professional identity and personal rewards in teaching. The Elementary School Journal, LVII, 297–307. * Wright, B. D., & Douglas, G. A. (1975). Best test design and self-tailored testing. Research Memorandum No. 19. Chicago, Illinois: MESA Laboratory, Department of Education, University of Chicag

* Wright, B. D., & Douglas, G. A. (1977). Best procedures for sample-free item analysis. Applied Psychological Measurement, 1, 281–294. * Wright, B. D., & Douglas, G. A. (1977). Conditional versus unconditional procedures for sample-free item analysis. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 37, 47–60. * Wright, B. D., & Linacre, J. M. (1989). Observations are always ordinal; measurements, however, must be interval. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 70(12), 857–86

* Wright, B. D., Linacre, J. M., & Heinemann, A. W. (1993). Measuring functional status in rehabilitation. Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Clinics of North America, 4(3), 475–491C. V. Granger & G. E. Gresham (Eds.), New developments in functional assessment. * Wright, B. D., & Masters, G. N. (1982). Rating scale analysis: Rasch measurement. Chicago, Illinois: MESA Press

* Wright, B. D., Mead, R. J., & Bell, S. R. (1980). BICAL: Calibrating items and scales with the Rasch model. Research Memorandum 23C. Statistical Laboratory, Department of Education, The University of Chicago

* Wright, B. D., Mead, R. J., & Ludlow, L. H. (1980). KIDMAP: person-by-item interaction mapping. MESA Memorandum #29. Statistical Laboratory, Department of Education, The University of Chicago

* Wright, B. D., & Mok, M. (2000). Understanding Rasch measurement: Rasch models overview. Journal of Applied Measurement, 1(1), 83–106. * Wright, B. D., & Panchapakesan, N. (1969). A procedure for sample-free item analysis. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 29(1), 23–48. * Wright, B. D., & Stone, M. H. (1979). Best test design: Rasch measurement. Chicago, Illinois: MESA Press

* Wright, B. D., & Stone, M. H. (1998). Diseño de mejores pruebas panish translation of Best Test Design(R. Vidal, Trans.). Mexico City, Mexico: CENEVAL (Original work published 1979). * Wright, B. D., & Stone, M. H. (1999). Measurement essentials. Wilmington, DE: Wide Range, Inc

* Wright, B. D., & Stone, M. H. (2004). Making measures. Chicago: Phaneron Press. * Wright, B. D., & Yonke, A. M. (1989). American University Studies, Series V: Philosophy. Vol. 82: Hero, villain, saint: An adventure in the experience of individuality. New York: Peter Lang.

Notes

External links

Organizations and discussion lists

* http://www.rasch.org * http://www.raschsig.org * https://web.archive.org/web/20110706085804/http://www2.wu-wien.ac.at/marketing/mbc/mbc.html * https://mailinglist.acer.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/rasch

Software

* https://web.archive.org/web/20100912092023/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 {{DEFAULTSORT:Wright, Benjamin Drake American physicists 20th-century American psychologists American statisticians 2015 deaths 1926 births The Hill School alumni Mathematicians from Pennsylvania People from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania Little Red School House alumni Quantitative psychologists