Frederic Lord; Pioneer in Testing

Frederic Lord, 87, a researcher whose work laid the theoretical foundations of modern educational testing. Lord was best known as the author of “A Theory of Test Scores,” which was based on his doctoral dissertation at Princeton University in 1951. It is considered a landmark in the history of the science of measuring human mental performance, or psychometrics, providing an elegant mathematical model that enabled developers of tests such as the SAT to create items and scales that allow meaningful comparisons of students’ performances and gauge the technical quality and difficulty of questions. His research also influenced the Graduate Record Exam, the Test of English as a Foreign Language, the Graduate Management Admissions Test and the Law School Admissions Test. Lord joined the graduate record office of the Carnegie Foundation as a researcher in 1944, moving in 1950 to an offshoot organization, the newly formed Educational Testing Service. He remained with that firm, developer of the College Board exams, until his retirement in 1982. He contributed to or wrote more than 100 papers and books, including “Statistical Theories of Mental Test Scores,” co-written with Melvin R. Novick. That book is also considered a milestone in test theory. Lord held many positions in professional organizations, including president of the Psychometric Society and associate editor of the journal Psychometrika. On Lord’s 70th birthday in 1982, the Educational Testing Service held an international conference in his honor, which resulted in the publication of a major volume of testing research. On Feb. 5 in Naples, Fla.