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 covers specialized fields within psychology and education devoted to testing, measurement, assessment, and rela ...

and

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

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, United States. It was founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the Methodi ...

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

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

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

Teachers College Teachers College, Columbia University (TC) is the graduate school of education affiliated with Columbia University, a private research university in New York City. Founded in 1887, Teachers College has been a part of Columbia University since ...

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 ...

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 called ...

. Like his father,

Edward Thorndike Edward Lee Thorndike ( – ) 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 his " theory of connectionism" and helped ...

, 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 readab ...

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

Cognitive Abilities Test Cognitive Abilities Test can refer to two different educational assessment tests. CogAT The Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) is a group-administered K–12 assessment published by Riverside Insights and intended to estimate students' learned ...

. He was one of the first to write about

cluster analysis Cluster analysis or clustering is the data analyzing technique in which task of grouping a set of objects in such a way that objects in the same group (called a cluster) are more Similarity measure, similar (in some specific sense defined by the ...

. He received the

E. L. Thorndike Award The APA Division 15 Career Achievement Award (previously the E. L. Thorndike Career Achievement Award) is an award of the American Psychological Association given to living recipients for substantial career achievements in educational psychology. T ...

, which was named after his father, in 1971.

Death

Thorndike died of heart failure in September 1990 at the age of 79.

References

Rozenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1966). Teachers’ Expectations: Determinants of Pupils’ IQ Gains. Psychological Reports, 115-118.https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1966.19.1.115

Education and career

Death

References

External links

Further reading