University Times

Robert Glaser, founding director emeritus of the Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC) and University Professor Emeritus of Psychology, died Feb. 4, 2012. He was 91.

Glaser, a leading scholar in the psychology of learning, cognition and instruction, was one of the first to champion the role of assessment of learning. He built upon the psychology of human cognition to integrate instruction and testing. He won international recognition in the field of measurement when he initiated the criterion-referenced testing movement — tests that were tied to performance levels that describe what students know and can do.

Glaser arrived at Pitt in 1956 as an associate professor of psychology and taught as a professor in the Department of Psychology and education through most of his career.

In 1963 with the late J. Steele Gow, then the executive director of the Maurice and Laura Falk Foundation, Glaser co-founded LRDC, one of the first centers to investigate learning, instruction and schooling for the improvement of educational practice. Glaser served as LRDC’s director until 1997.

He was a founder of the cognitive science of instruction. When he launched LRDC, he was motivated by the opportunities to improve education by using computer technology to leverage applied behavioral engineering techniques. As the potential of cognitive psychology started to become apparent, he realized first that its techniques could contribute to that engineering effort and then that cognitive science, with its focus on understanding the structure of human knowledge and the ways in which people acquire knowledge, had enormous potential for the improvement of learning and teaching.

Charles Perfetti, director of LRDC, said, “In founding LRDC, Bob Glaser instantiated — in a single university setting — his concept of a new multidisciplinary science of instruction. Bob was both an iconic figure and a down-to-earth friend to many, many people. He was terrifically supportive of graduate students, postdocs and junior faculty and had a nurturing influence that stretched around the globe.”

Alan Lesgold, dean of Pitt’s School of Education, said, “Bob energized the entire Learning Research and Development Center. When he asked you in passing: ‘What did you discover today?’ he meant it and was eager to think about your answer. So, of course, people did a lot of discovering, and he did a lot of supportive critiquing. Dozens of students, even many advised by other faculty, attribute their success to the standards and support Bob provided.”

Glaser was the author or editor of more than 20 books.

He was a member of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters and served as president of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the National Academy of Education.

Glaser received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship; the AERA Award for Distinguished Research and its E.F. Linquist Award; the American Psychological Association’s (APA) E.L. Thorndike Award for Distinguished Psychological Contributions to Education, its Distinguished Scientific Award for the Applications of Psychology and its Distinguished Lifetime Contribution to Evaluation, Measurement and Statistics; the APA’s James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award; the National Society for Performance and Instruction’s Distinguished Professional Achievement Award; the UCLA Center for the Study of Evaluation’s Distinguished Achievement Award, and the Educational Testing Service Award for Distinguished Service to Measurement. At Pitt, Glaser received a Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award in 1995. He was honored by Pitt’s senior administration, colleagues and former students during a ceremony in 2006.

Glaser received his PhD in psychological measurement and learning theory in 1949 at Indiana University, where he studied under B.F. Skinner. He was an assistant professor at the University of Illinois before becoming a senior research scientist at the American Institutes for Research in 1952.

Glaser is survived by a sister, Irma Kemp; daughters Ellen DeBenedetti and Karen Glaser; two grandchildren, and one great-grandson.

A memorial service has been scheduled for Saturday, March 10, at 1 p.m. in Heinz Chapel.

The family asks that donations be made to the Alzheimer’s Association, www.alz.org, or to LRDC. For more information, call Patsy Guzzi Jr. at 412/624-7030.