Editors:
- Shows how Wright’s ideas evolved with collaboration from colleagues and students and why these ideas remain important today
- Connects Wright's contributions to contemporary issues in psychological and social measurement
- Uses personal stories to humanize an intensely mathematical field, making it more accessible to a wider audience
- Recounts how Wright’s personal approach to his professional life inspired generations of students and colleagues
- Includes extensive annotated bibliographies on Wright’s works and on works reflecting his influence
Part of the book series: Springer Series in Measurement Science and Technology (SSMST)
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Table of contents (16 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
About this book
In this tribute to Benjamin Wright, former students and colleagues recall the foundational contributions he made to the theory and practice of measurement in a career spanning over five decades. Wright is recognized as the foremost proponent of the psychometric approach of Georg Rasch, a Danish mathematician, whose ideas continue to provoke controversy. Wright’s colleagues and students, and students of their students, are leaders in educational research and practice around the world. This volume relates the extent of Wright’s influence far beyond education and psychology, where his work in measurement began, into health care and the social sciences at large. The editors and contributors—all leading measurement scholars—trace the development of themes in Wright’s work, identifying the roots of today’s formative assessment methods, the integration of quantitative and qualitative data, and the contrast between scientific and statistical methods. These previously unpublished papers reflect on Wright’s lifelong passion for making measurement both more scientific and more meaningful. They recount how Wright’s insight, energy, and gregarious nature led him to produce multiple innovations in computing, estimation methods, model development, fit assessment, and reliability theory, stimulating practical applications in dozens of fields, serving on over 120 dissertation committees, and founding several professional societies. The volume includes three reprinted articles by Wright that provide insights into his early engagement with Rasch’s ideas.
Psychological and Social Measurement will be welcomed by the broad international measurement community of professionals and researchers working in such diverse fields as education, psychology, health sciences, management, and metrology. Scientists working in any field involving measurement science and technology will appreciate an inside look at this seminal figure and a new perspective on the expanding conversation across the sciences about measurement and the communication of meaningful, transparent information.
Editors and Affiliations
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Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, USA
Mark Wilson, William P. Fisher, Jr.
About the editors
William P. Fisher, Jr. received his doctorate from the University of Chicago, where he was mentored by Benjamin D. Wright and supported by a Spencer Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship. Dr. Fisher is recognized for contributions to measurement theory and practice that span the full range from the philosophical to the applied in fields as diverse as special education, mindfulness practice, clinical chemistry, and survey research. His articles have appeared in journals spanning a similarly wide range of fields, from education and psychology to nursing and occupational therapy to physics and metrology. Dr. Fisher’s entry on metrology and measurement in the 2011 World Standards Day paper competition won third prize, which is notable given the focus on engineering and natural science topics usually emphasized by the competition sponsors, SES, the Society for Standards Professionals, and the US National Institute for Standards and Technology. In efforts toward this same end of fostering more informed dialogue between the natural and social sciences, Fisher began contributing in 2008 to an ongoing conference hosted by the International Measurement Confederation (IMEKO) on the human and social value of measurement. Work in this area ultimately led to an IMEKO Joint Symposium co-hosted by Fisher and Mark Wilson at UC Berkeley in August 2016.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Psychological and Social Measurement
Book Subtitle: The Career and Contributions of Benjamin D. Wright
Editors: Mark Wilson, William P. Fisher, Jr.
Series Title: Springer Series in Measurement Science and Technology
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67304-2
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and Psychology, Behavioral Science and Psychology (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer International Publishing AG 2017
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-67303-5Published: 22 January 2018
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-88409-7Published: 04 June 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-67304-2Published: 22 December 2017
Series ISSN: 2198-7807
Series E-ISSN: 2198-7815
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIII, 278
Number of Illustrations: 14 b/w illustrations, 31 illustrations in colour
Topics: Psychometrics, Assessment, Testing and Evaluation, Statistics for Social Sciences, Humanities, Law, Methodology of the Social Sciences