John B. Carroll

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John Bissell "Jack" Carroll (born June 5, 1916 in Hartford , Connecticut , † July 1, 2003 in Fairbanks , Alaska ) was an American educational psychologist , psycholinguist and intelligence researcher .

biography

At the age of 13 he was in contact with Benjamin Whorf , from whom he posthumously published a selection of works in 1956 under the title Language, Thought and Reality (1963 Language, Thinking, Reality). Introduced by him and Edward Sapir to linguistics , he first studied classical philology at Wesleyan University , where he graduated in 1937. In the summer of that year he went to the Institute of Linguistics at the University of Michigan . During his studies he became interested in psychology, whereupon he moved to the University of Minnesota , Minneapolis , to the then most famous psychologist who did language research, Burrhus Frederic Skinner . Skinner soon helped him to stay with Louis Leon Thurstone at the University of Chicago , where he was more able to match his inclination to psychometrics . Here he researched mainly linguistic abilities and in 1941 completed his dissertation “A Factor Analysis of Verbal Abilities”. In the following years Carroll became one of the founding fathers of psycholinguistics and dealt a lot with learning a second language.

From 1940 to 1942 he taught psychology and education for the first time at Mount Holyoke College . Here he also met his wife, the psychologist Mary Searle. By 1943 he had a teaching position at Indiana University , from where he moved to the University of Chicago for a year . In 1949 he went to the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he was appointed Professor of Education ( Roy E. Larsen Professor of Education ) in 1956 . After working for the Educational Testing Service in Princeton (New Jersey) from 1967 to 1974, he returned to the university. At the University of North Carolina he was Professor of Psychology until his retirement in 1982, where he headed the LL Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory from 1974 to 1979.

Contributions to psycholinguistics

The starting point of Carroll's academic career was psycholinguistics , to which he remained connected in his work on educational psychology and intelligence research. An important piece of work was the development of the "Modern Language Aptitude Test" (MLAT) for the US Army, which he published in 1959 together with Stanley Sapon. It is still used today by government organizations to select candidates who are said to have a special talent for learning foreign languages. In 1961 he published the "Fundamental considerations in testing for English language proficiency of foreign students", which had a considerable influence on the design of the entrance tests for the American universities Test of English as a Foreign Language ( TOEFL ).

Contributions to educational psychology

In 1963, in Educational Psychology , Carroll presented his Model of School Learning , which is supposed to provide a framework model for predicting school success by including various factors. The individual differences of the individual students in their general intelligence , their special talents and their motivation are compared with the variables of the teaching quality and duration. A revision of the model (“The Carroll Model: A 25 Year Retrospective and Prospective View” 1989) has served as a basis for research and evaluation to this day.

Contributions to intelligence research

His best-known contribution to psychology today is the "three stratum model" of intelligence . In his book Human Cognitive Abilities: A survey of factor-analytic studies , published in 1993 , he based his theory on a synopsis of 461 factor analyzes . The three layers represent a hierarchical factor model of intelligence:

    • Layer I consists of around 70 specific intelligence skills
    • Layer II consists of eight broad factors of intelligence
    • Layer III corresponds to the g-factor of Charles Spearman

The model thus integrates the various factor-analytical approaches in intelligence research:

It is often discussed along with the theories of Cattell and John L. Horn as the CHC (Cattell-Horn-Carroll) theory. The CHC theory is the basis for the current revisions of many intelligence tests (such as WISC IV (HAWIK-IV), K-ABC II, Woodcock-Johnson III). However, this should not obscure the differences between these theories, as Horn opposes a general g-factor, while Carroll vehemently supports it.

Carroll is among the 52 co-signers of Mainstream Science on Intelligence , written by Linda Gottfredson and published in December 1994 by the Wall Street Journal .

Fonts

Carroll is said to have published more than 400 writings in his life. Lorin W. Anderson (ed.) Provides an overview of his earlier writings: Perspectives on school learning: Selected writings of John B. Carroll. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ 1985.

  • as editor: Language, Thought, and Reality. Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf . MIT Press, Boston 1956.
  • with SM Sapon: Modern Language Aptitude Test . Psychological Corporation, San Antonio, Texas 1959
  • Fundamental considerations in testing for English language proficiency of foreign students . In: Testing Center for Applied Linguistics , Washington, DC 1961. Reprinted in: HB Allen and RN Campbell: Teaching English as a Second Language. A Book of Readings . McGraw Hill, New York 1972.
  • A model of school learning . In: Teachers College Record . Volume 64, 1963, pp. 723-733
  • Language and thought . Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 1964.
  • The Carroll model. A twenty-five year retrospective and prospective view . In: Educational Researcher . Volume 18, No. 1, 1989, pp. 26-31.
  • Educational psychology in the 21st century . In: Educational psychologist . Volume 28, 1993, pp. 89-95.
  • Human cognitive abilities. A survey of factor-analytical studies . Cambridge University Press, New York 1993, ISBN 0-521-38275-0
  • The three-stratum theory of cognitive abilities . In: DP Flanagan, JL Genshaft and PL Harrison (eds.): Contemporary intellectual assessment. Theories, tests, and issues . The Guilford Press, New York 1997, pp. 122-130.

literature

  • LB Jones: Carroll, John B. In: RJ Sternberg (Ed.): The encyclopedia of intelligence . Macmillan, New York 1994.
  • David Lubinski: John Bissell Carroll . In: American Psychologist. Volume 9, No. 1, 2004, pp. 43-44.
  • Charles W. Stansfield: Carroll, John Bissell . In: B. Spolsky (Ed.): Concise Encyclopedia of Educational Linguistics . Elsevier, Amsterdam and New York 1999.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Linda Gottfredson: Mainstream Science on Intelligence. In: Wall Street Journal, Dec. 13, 1994, p. A18

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Carroll, John B.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Carroll, John Bissel (full name); Carroll, Jack
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American educational psychologist, psycholinguist, and intelligence researcher
DATE OF BIRTH June 5, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Hartford (Connecticut) , Connecticut , USA
DATE OF DEATH July 1, 2003
Place of death Fairbanks , Alaska