Cronbach and Rasch

In a "Fireside Chat" during the 1992 AERA Annual Meeting, Lee J. Cronbach remarked on his only meeting with Georg Rasch. In 1955, Cronbach was commissioned by the Office of Naval Research to travel to Europe, meet the leading researchers in educational measurement and report back on interesting ideas. While in Copenhagen, Denmark, Cronbach met with Rasch who was then doing bio-assay work for the Serum Institute. Writing enthusiastically with chalk on a blackboard, Rasch started to explain the multiplicative form of his model. But in almost the first sentence he stated that "our scales have an absolute zero". This immediately alienated Cronbach because he had recently been in dispute with Louis Guttman and Jane Loevinger on the existence and nature of natural zeroes. Consequently, when Cronbach submitted his report on his return from Europe, he felt that Rasch's work had so little merit that he did not even give it a note. As a result it was 12 years before Rasch's work came to the notice of the American educational measurement community.

Cronbach's current [1992] opinion is that the Rasch model works well for messy data. He perceives its chief drawback to be its insistence on uni-dimensionality, and its incompatibility with multi-dimensionality.

[These shortcomings are demanded as necessities in all ordinary measurement devices!]

Cronbach and Rasch. L. J. Cronbach … Rasch Measurement Transactions, 1992, 6:1, 200

Rasch Books and Publications
Invariant Measurement: Using Rasch Models in the Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences, 2nd Edn. George Engelhard, Jr. & Jue Wang	Applying the Rasch Model (Winsteps, Facets) 4th Ed., Bond, Yan, Heene	Advances in Rasch Analyses in the Human Sciences (Winsteps, Facets) 1st Ed., Boone, Staver	Advances in Applications of Rasch Measurement in Science Education, X. Liu & W. J. Boone	Rasch Analysis in the Human Sciences (Winsteps) Boone, Staver, Yale
Introduction to Many-Facet Rasch Measurement (Facets), Thomas Eckes	Statistical Analyses for Language Testers (Facets), Rita Green	Invariant Measurement with Raters and Rating Scales: Rasch Models for Rater-Mediated Assessments (Facets), George Engelhard, Jr. & Stefanie Wind	Aplicação do Modelo de Rasch (Português), de Bond, Trevor G., Fox, Christine M	Appliquer le modèle de Rasch: Défis et pistes de solution (Winsteps) E. Dionne, S. Béland
Exploring Rating Scale Functioning for Survey Research (R, Facets), Stefanie Wind	Rasch Measurement: Applications, Khine	Winsteps Tutorials - free Facets Tutorials - free	Many-Facet Rasch Measurement (Facets) - free, J.M. Linacre	Fairness, Justice and Language Assessment (Winsteps, Facets), McNamara, Knoch, Fan
Other Rasch-Related Resources: Rasch Measurement YouTube Channel
Rasch Measurement Transactions & Rasch Measurement research papers - free	An Introduction to the Rasch Model with Examples in R (eRm, etc.), Debelak, Strobl, Zeigenfuse	Rasch Measurement Theory Analysis in R, Wind, Hua	Applying the Rasch Model in Social Sciences Using R, Lamprianou	El modelo métrico de Rasch: Fundamentación, implementación e interpretación de la medida en ciencias sociales (Spanish Edition), Manuel González-Montesinos M.
Rasch Models: Foundations, Recent Developments, and Applications, Fischer & Molenaar	Probabilistic Models for Some Intelligence and Attainment Tests, Georg Rasch	Rasch Models for Measurement, David Andrich	Constructing Measures, Mark Wilson	Best Test Design - free, Wright & Stone Rating Scale Analysis - free, Wright & Masters
Virtual Standard Setting: Setting Cut Scores, Charalambos Kollias	Diseño de Mejores Pruebas - free, Spanish Best Test Design	A Course in Rasch Measurement Theory, Andrich, Marais	Rasch Models in Health, Christensen, Kreiner, Mesba	Multivariate and Mixture Distribution Rasch Models, von Davier, Carstensen

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