Robert Ladd Thorndike (September 22, 1910 – September 21, 1990) 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 ...

and

educational psychologist An educational psychologist is a psychologist whose differentiating functions may include diagnostic and psycho-educational Psychological evaluation, assessment, psychological counseling in educational communities (students, teachers, parents, ...

who made significant contributions to the analysis of reliability, the interpretation of error, cognitive ability, and the design and analysis of comparative surveys of achievement test performance of students in various countries.

Education and career

Thorndike received his B.A. (Mathematics) from

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a Private university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Epis ...

in 1931, and his M.A. and Ph.D. (both in Psychology) from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1932 and 1935, respectively. He was a professor at

Teachers College A normal school or normal college is an institution created to train teachers by educating them in the norms of pedagogy and curriculum. In the 19th century in the United States, instruction in normal schools was at the high school level, turni ...

from 1936 to 1976. He was president of the

American Educational Research Association The American Educational Research Association (AERA, pronounced "A-E-R-A") is a professional organization representing education researchers in the United States and around the world. AERA's mission is to advance knowledge about education and p ...

and 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 ...

. Like his father,

Edward Thorndike Edward Lee Thorndike (August 31, 1874 – August 9, 1949) was an American psychologist who spent nearly his entire career at Teachers College, Columbia University. His work on comparative psychology and the learning process led to the theory o ...

, Thorndike conducted research in both animal and human psychology. With

Irving Lorge Irving Daniel Lorge (April 19, 1905 – January 23, 1961) was an American psychologist known for his work in psychometrics. His research focused on a wide variety of topics, including the measurement of giftedness, human intelligence, and readabi ...

, Thorndike published a standardized test in 1954 which later became, with the collaboration of Elizabeth Hagen, the widely used

Cognitive Abilities Test The Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) is a group-administered K–12 assessment published by Riverside Insights and intended to estimate students' learned reasoning and problem solving abilities through a battery of verbal, quantitative, and ...

. He was one of the first to write about

cluster analysis Cluster analysis or clustering is the task of grouping a set of objects in such a way that objects in the same group (called a cluster) are more similar (in some sense) to each other than to those in other groups (clusters). It is a main task of ...

. Thorndike died of heart failure in September 1990 at the age of 79.http://edr.sagepub.com/content/20/3/22.extract

Education and career

References

External links

Further reading