30 Facts About Anne Anastasi

Anne Anastasi was an American psychologist best known for her pioneering development of psychometrics.

Anne Anastasi called for them to go beyond test scores, to search the assessed individual's history to help them to better understand their own results and themselves.

Anne Anastasi's writings have provided incisive commentary on test construction and the proper application of psychological tests.

Anne Anastasi stressed the importance of the role of the tester to correctly select, conduct, and evaluate tests.

Anne Anastasi was president of the American Psychological Association in 1972, the third ever woman to be elected.

Anne Anastasi was born on December 19,1908, in New York City to Anthony Anastasi and Theresa Gaudiosi Anastasi.

Anne Anastasi's father died when she was a baby, and his family did not remain in contact.

Anne Anastasi grew up with her mother, her mother's brother, and her grandmother.

Anne Anastasi graduated from Barnard College with a bachelor's degree at age 20 in 1928, and completed a PhD at Columbia University in 1930.

Anne Anastasi was hired by Harry Hollingworth to teach at Barnard, where she remained from 1930 to 1939.

Anne Anastasi worked at Queens College, City University of New York from 1939 to 1947, becoming chair of the department.

Anne Anastasi worked at Fordham University from 1947 to 1979, serving as chair from 1968 to 1974.

Anne Anastasi retired as a full professor in 1979, and became a professor emeritus.

Anne Anastasi was treated with radium, which destroyed the cancer but caused her to become infertile.

In 1937, Anne Anastasi published the first edition of Differential Psychology, a nearly 900-page pioneering work on what she defined as "the scientific study of differences between groups" Her definition encompassed not only race and ethnicity, but group differences reflective of age, education, family, gender, religion, and social class.

Anne Anastasi addressed the methodological challenges involved in studying group differences.

Anne Anastasi published three editions of Differential Psychology.

Anne Anastasi pointed out that the "testing boom" of the 1920s caused the term IQ to be adopted and misused by the general public.

In contrast, Anne Anastasi emphasized that psychometric scores convey an individual's present status of what he or she knows.

Anne Anastasi cautioned against interpreting such tests as serving a strong predictive function, as scores only indicated to what degree a person acquired the knowledge and skills for the criterion of a given test.

Therefore, Anne Anastasi advocated against psychometric tests definitively labelling a person, as they assess for specific types of knowledge and do not account for how intelligence can change over time.

Important to Anne Anastasi was an understanding of the cultural frames of reference within which a test is developed.

Anne Anastasi stated that "No intelligence test can be culture free, because human intelligence is not culture free".

Anne Anastasi mostly applied existing methods to individual and group ability testing, as well as self-report inventories and measuring interests and attitudes.

Anne Anastasi followed the methodological principles of norms, reliability, validity, and item analysis.

Anne Anastasi stressed that, in order to evaluate any psychometric test, the tester must be knowledgeable of the main features of the tests, particularly as they apply to norms, validity, and reliability.

In regards to criterion-referenced tests, Anne Anastasi diverged from educational psychologist Robert Glaser, who first introduced the concept in 1963.

Anne Anastasi recognized that there are many types of test reliability.

In contrast with the belief that there are three kinds of validity - content validity, criterion validity, and construct validity - Anne Anastasi espoused to the then-growing belief of the mid-1980s that many more procedures could be used to build validity into a test.

In Psychological Testing: Basic Concepts and Common Misconceptions, Anne Anastasi clarified differences between types of tests.