Profiles in Research

Abstract

Ledyard R. Tucker was born on September 19, 1910 to Sarah and Reese Tucker in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. He attended the Glenwood Springs elementary school and the Garfield County high school, graduating in 1928. He attended the University of Colorado from 1928 to 1933, including two six-month stints with a construction company in San Antonio, Texas. After graduating with a degree in electrical engineering in the midst of the depression, Tucker drifted from Colorado to Texas to Chicago looking for work. He was fortunate to obtain a WPA position as a research assistant to Professor L. L. Thurstone at the University of Chicago, where he started working in January 1934. Professor Thurstone immediately recognized Tucker's analytical and spatial talents and encouraged him to pursue further education, which Tucker did, first in economics and then in psychology. He continued to work as Thurstone's research associate and as an instructor at the University of Chicago, completing his Ph.D. in 1946. He was widely regarded as Thurstone's most prominent proteg6. In 1944, Tucker took a position in statistics with the College Entrance Examination Board. In 1947, when the Educational Testing Service was founded, Tucker became the first Director of Statistical Analysis. In 1952, he switched to the research department where he stayed until 1960. He was a lecturer in psychology At Princeton University from 1948 until 1960. Tucker moved to academia full time in 1960 when he joined the University of Illinois where he held appointments as Professor of Psychology and Professor of Educational Psychology. In 1962, he was appointed Professor in the University of Illinois Center for Advanced Studies, a prestigious appointment. Included among the many awards and honors he has received are the ETS Distinguished Service to Measurement Award (1981), the American Psychological Association's (APA) Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award (1987), the highest honor awarded by APA, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from Division 5 of APA (1997). Tucker also served as President of the Psychometric Society and of Division 5 of APA. When Tucker retired in 1979, he was viewed as a pioneer and an intellectual giant in the field of psychometrics from the 1940s to the 1980s. He made major foundational contributions to the development of statistical methods in the areas of test theory, factor analysis, and scaling that are still clear and relevant today. And he continued to consult well into his 70s.