David Michael Thissen (born c. 1950) is an emeritus professor of quantitative psychology at the University of North Carolina and former President of the Psychometric Society.[1] He is a fellow at the American Statistical Association and the American Psychological Society.

David Thissen
Bornc. 1950 (age 73–74)
NationalityAmerican
Alma materSaint Louis University
University of Chicago
Known forItem response theory
Unit-weighted regression
Test Scoring
AwardsAmerican Statistical Association Fellow (2006)
AERA Inaugural Fellow (2008)
NCME Career Contribution Award (2015)
Scientific career
FieldsPsychometrics
InstitutionsUniversity of Kansas
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Doctoral advisorR. Darrell Bock
Doctoral studentsBryce Reeve
Li Cai

Early life and education edit

The eldest of five children, Thissen graduated from St. Edmond High School in Fort Dodge, Iowa and was a national semifinalist in the 1967 Westinghouse Science Talent Search.[2] He earned a bachelor's degree from Saint Louis University and a PhD in quantitative psychology from the University of Chicago, where he was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

Career edit

Upon receiving his PhD in 1976, Thissen joined the psychology faculty at the University of Kansas and was appointed an associate professor (with tenure) five years later. He moved to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1990 as a full professor of psychology and served as the chair of the L. L. Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory until 2002. He continues to work at UNC as a full professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience. He published Test Scoring with Howard Wainer in 2001.[citation needed]

Selected publications edit

  • David Thissen and Howard Wainer, ed. (2001). Test Scoring. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. ISBN 0-8058-3766-3.

References edit

  1. ^ "Past, Present and Incoming Presidents". psychometricsociety.org. Psychometric Society. Retrieved 7 March 2017.
  2. ^ The Messenger, Jan. 26, 1967 archive. Accessed March 15, 2017.

External links edit

  • Vita at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill