An Academic Genealogy of Psychometric Society Presidents

Lisa D Wijsen,Willem J Heiser,Tiago Cabaço,Denny Borsboom

doi:10.1007/s11336-018-09651-4

Lisa D Wijsen, Willem J Heiser + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11336-018-09651-4

Copy DOI

Abstract

In this paper, we present the academic genealogy of presidents of the Psychometric Society by constructing a genealogical tree, in which Ph.D. students are encoded as descendants of their advisors. Results show that most of the presidents belong to five distinct lineages that can be traced to Wilhelm Wundt, James Angell, William James, Albert Michotte or Carl Friedrich Gauss. Important psychometricians Lee Cronbach and Charles Spearman play only a marginal role. The genealogy systematizes important historical knowledge that can be used to inform studies on the history of psychometrics and exposes the rich and multidisciplinary background of the Psychometric Society.

Highlights

Psychometrics is a scientific discipline concerned with ‘quantitative measurement practices in psychology, education and the social sciences’ (‘What is psychometrics?’, 2018)
We set in the methodology section, the total academic genealogy of psychometrics includes 208 scholars, of which 84 are presidents
We have developed a systematic overview of the lines of descent of Psychometric Society presidents through the construction of an academic genealogy

Summary

Introduction

Psychometrics is a scientific discipline concerned with ‘quantitative measurement practices in psychology, education and the social sciences’ (‘What is psychometrics?’, 2018). Psychometric research, commonly understood to cover the technical rather than the substantive side of test theory (Borsboom, 2006), has further developed and branched out in a wide array of modeling techniques such as classical test theory (CTT), structural equation modeling (SEM), item response theory (IRT), and multidimensional scaling (MDS) (Jones & Thissen, 2007) Variations of these models have been used for the measurement and prediction of a multitude of psychological attributes, such as personality dimensions (McCrae & Costa, 1987), mental abilities (Thurstone, 1938; Carroll, 1993), and psychiatric disorders (Caspi et al, 2014).

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion