Boston College professor Larry Houston Ludlow, chair of the Lynch School of Education and Human Development’s Measurement, Evaluation, Statistics, and Assessment department, will receive the 2022 Benjamin Drake Wright Senior Scholar Award, which recognizes a high-ranking academic whose contributions over a career have had a widespread positive impact on the field of Rasch measurement.
Larry Ludlow (Caitlin Cunningham)
This award, bestowed biannually in even numbered years by the Rasch Measurement Special Interest Group of the American Education Research Association, was established in 2016 to recognize scholars who have made outstanding and influential contributions to the field of social measurement, and in particular, to Rasch measurement theory.
“It's great to see the primary Rasch group recognize Larry’s significant contributions with this lifetime achievement award,” said Stanton E.F. Wortham, the Charles F. Donovan, S.J., Dean of the Lynch School. “Rasch methodology is an important alternative approach to quantitative social science, and Larry has been applying and advancing this approach for many years.”
The Rasch model, named for Danish mathematician, statistician, and psychometrician Georg William Rasch, is a psychometric framework for developing and analyzing cognitive performance assessments (i.e., math and science tests) as well as affective scales for measuring psychological constructs such as meaning and purpose in life.
Ludlow, who will retire from Boston College at the end of the semester, will formally receive the award at the next Rasch Special Interest Group business meeting, and he will speak at the event.
Since arriving at the Lynch School in 1983, Ludlow has rigorously advanced how faculty teaching evaluations may be longitudinally studied, and helped evolve measurement methodology across numerous disciplines. The MESA chair since 2001, and named an AERA Fellow in 2013, Ludlow also received the Patricia B. Elmore Award for Outstanding Research in Measurement and Evaluation from the Association for Assessment and Research in Counseling/Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development.
"Professor Wright invited me to join the doctoral program at the University of Chicago. The four years I spent working with him and colleagues were among the most intellectually stimulating years of my life,” said Ludlow. “The freedom to explore whatever topics I found interesting continues to influence how as department chair, I try to provide similar experiences for the graduate students in the MESA department. I will always be grateful for the opportunities extended to me by Ben, and I’m honored to receive this award and the recognition behind it."
Phil Gloudemans | University Communications | April 2022