Quinn Michael McNemar (February 20, 1900 – July 3, 1986) was an American

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...

and

statistician A statistician is a person who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, and statisticians may wor ...

. He is known for his work on

IQ tests An intelligence quotient (IQ) is a total score derived from a set of standardized tests or subtests designed to assess human intelligence. The abbreviation "IQ" was coined by the psychologist William Stern for the German term ''Intelligenzqu ...

, for his book ''Psychological Statistics'' (1949) and for

McNemar's test In statistics, McNemar's test is a statistical test used on paired nominal data. It is applied to 2 × 2 contingency tables with a dichotomous trait, with matched pairs of subjects, to determine whether the row and column marginal fre ...

, the statistical test he introduced in 1947.

Life

McNemar was born in

Greenland, West Virginia Greenland is an unincorporated community between Walker's Ridge and New Creek Mountain on the North Fork Patterson Creek in Grant County, West Virginia, United States. Greenland lies at the western end of Greenland Gap in New Creek Mountain New ...

in 1900. He obtained his bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1925 from

Juniata College Juniata College is a private liberal arts college in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1876 as a co-educational school, it was the first college started by members of the Church of the Brethren as a center for vocational learning for those wh ...

, studied for his doctorate in psychology under

Lewis Terman Lewis Madison Terman (January 15, 1877 – December 21, 1956) was an American psychologist and author. He was noted as a pioneer in educational psychology in the early 20th century at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. He is best known f ...

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, and joined the faculty at Stanford in 1931. In 1942 he published ''The Revision of the Stanford–Binet Scale'', the IQ test released in 1916 by Terman. By the time he retired from Stanford in 1965 he held professorships in psychology, statistics and education. He taught for another five years at the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

before retiring to

Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was estab ...

, where he died in 1986. He was president of the

Psychometric Society The Psychometric Society is an international nonprofit professional organization devoted to the advancement of quantitative measurement practices in psychology, education, and the social sciences. The society publishes a scientific journal calle ...

in 1951 and of the

American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...

in 1964.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McNemar, Quinn 1900 births 1986 deaths American statisticians Stanford University Department of Psychology faculty University of Texas at Austin faculty People from Grant County, West Virginia Juniata College alumni Stanford University alumni Educators from West Virginia Presidents of the American Psychological Association 20th-century American psychologists Quantitative psychologists