Everett Franklin Lindquist (June 4, 1901 – May 13, 1978) was a professor of
education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. ...
at the
University of Iowa College of Education. He is best known as the creator of the
ACT and other standardized tests. His contributions to the field of
educational testing are significant and still evident today.
Early life
Everett Franklin Lindquist was a native of
Gowrie, Iowa. He was the son of Jonas A. Lindquist and Hannah O. Anderson.
Career
Lindquist joined the University of Iowa in 1925 as a research assistant. He received his Ph.D. in 1927 and was a member of the Iowa faculty until retirement in 1969.
In 1953 he was elected as a
Fellow of the American Statistical Association
Like many other academic professional societies, the American Statistical Association (ASA) uses the title of Fellow of the American Statistical Association as its highest honorary grade of membership. The number of new fellows per year is limited ...
.
Educational Testing
Desiring to create an academic competition for Iowa students, he developed a set of tests in 1929. These evolved into the
Iowa Tests of Basic Skills
The Iowa Assessments (previously the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and originally Iowa Every Pupil Test of Basic Skills) also known informally as the Iowa Tests, formerly known as the ITBS tests or the Iowa Basics, are standardized tests provided as a ...
, an exam for
elementary
Elementary may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* ''Elementary'' (Cindy Morgan album), 2001
* ''Elementary'' (The End album), 2007
* ''Elementary'', a Melvin "Wah-Wah Watson" Ragin album, 1977
Other uses in arts, entertainment, a ...
and
middle school
A middle school (also known as intermediate school, junior high school, junior secondary school, or lower secondary school) is an educational stage which exists in some countries, providing education between primary school and secondary school ...
students, as well as the
Iowa Tests of Educational Development The Iowa Tests of Educational Development (ITED) are a set of standardized tests given annually to high school students in many schools in the United States, covering Grades 9 to 12. The tests were created by the University of Iowa's College of E ...
for high schoolers. Despite their name, they are used nationwide, especially since the enactment of
No Child Left Behind
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) was a U.S. Act of Congress that reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act; it included Title I provisions applying to disadvantaged students. It supported standards-based educati ...
legislation. Due to their success, he founded the not-for-profit Measurement Research Center on the Iowa campus to score these tests, which was later acquired by
Westinghouse,
NCS
NCS may refer to:
Biology and chemistry
* N-Chlorosuccinimide, an organic chemical
* Neotenic complex syndrome
* Nerve conduction study, a medical diagnostic test
* Neuronal calcium sensor, a family of proteins
* Thiocyanate, an organic compoun ...
, and its present owner,
Pearson PLC
Pearson plc is a British multinational publishing and education company headquartered in London, England.
It was founded as a construction business in the 1840s but switched to publishing in the 1920s. Spender, J. A., ''Weetman Pearson: F ...
.
In 1959, he introduced the
ACT, an examination to test students on practical knowledge rather than cognitive reasoning examined on the
SAT. The ACT is still in widespread use today, and is headquartered in Lindquist's hometown,
Iowa City, Iowa
Iowa City, offically the City of Iowa City is a city in Johnson County, Iowa, United States. It is the home of the University of Iowa and county seat of Johnson County, at the center of the Iowa City Metropolitan Statistical Area. At the ti ...
. Although it is now administered by the
College Board, the competing organization to ACT, Lindquist developed the first
National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test
The Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) is a standardized test administered by the College Board and cosponsored by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) in the United States. In the 2018-2019 sc ...
s.
Lindquist was on the committee that developed the
GED, which evolved during World War II as a way to grant academic credit to servicemen.
Testing technology
As a result of the fast-growing use of ITBS tests, he developed the first practical
optical mark recognition system as a replacement for the electrical
mark sense
Electrographic is a term used for punched-card and page-scanning technology that allowed cards or pages marked with a pencil to be processed or converted into punched cards. The primary developer of electrographic systems was IBM, who used ma ...
IBM 805 Test Scoring Machine. Although many of his colleagues at the University of Iowa contributed to the invention, Lindquist is generally credited with this development and is the sole inventor listed on U.S. Patent 3,050,248 (Filed 1955, granted 1962).
Lindquist's first
optical mark recognition scanner used a
mimeograph
A mimeograph machine (often abbreviated to mimeo, sometimes called a stencil duplicator) is a low-cost duplicating machine that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. The process is called mimeography, and a copy made by the pro ...
paper-transport mechanism directly coupled to a magnetic
drum memory
Drum memory was a magnetic data storage device invented by Gustav Tauschek in 1932 in Austria. Drums were widely used in the 1950s and into the 1960s as computer memory.
For many early computers, drum memory formed the main working memory of ...
. Although it was not a general purpose
computer, it made extensive use of computer technology.
Publications
His 1940 book,
Statistical Analysis in Educational Research, laid the groundwork for the need to interpret testing data in smaller settings using accessible means. He was the editor of the first edition of the then definitive work, ''Educational Measurement'' (1951) and contributed his own chapter outlining the problems and issues facing his field. These issues are still of great importance today. A second influential book, "Design and Analysis of Experiments in Psychology and Education" (1953), expounded on the ideas mentioned in his first book, cementing his authority as an expert on educational research.
Legacy
The Lindquist Center, home to the University of Iowa College of Education, is currently on the University of Iowa campus and was named in his honor. Additionally, the Lindquist Building on the ACT campus in Iowa City also exists in his honor. He was also named one of Iowa City's "Fabulous 150" by the ''Iowa City Press Citizen''.
Although many classes now teach to his tests and ACT preparation is a multimillion-dollar industry, Lindquist discouraged
teaching to the test – due to this problem, his competitions ended in the late 1930s.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lindquist, Everett Franklin
1901 births
Standardized tests
University of Iowa alumni
University of Iowa faculty
1978 deaths
People from Webster County, Iowa
Fellows of the American Statistical Association