Marion Shaycoft Papers, 1934-2018
Collection context
- Creator:
- Shaycoft, Marion
- Abstract:
- Marion Shaycoft (1917-2014, Barnard class of 1938) was an education researcher from Brooklyn, New York who specialized in testing, statistics, and sampling. The contents of the Marion Shaycoft Papers include academic records, personal history materials, and sample test forms that she designed.
- Extent:
- 1.63 Linear Feet 1 half document box, 1 flat oversize box
- Language:
- English .
- Scope and content:
-
The Marion Shaycoft Papers include personal, professional, and educational records of Marion Shaycroft, including a scholarship certificate, transcripts, letters from the Barnard Office of Administration and Office of the Registrar, commencement photographs, honor societies and Teachers College pamphlets, a letter from the Office of the secretary, academic announcements, certificates of advanced academic standing, a statement of personal history, a security clearance application showing career progression, a resume (revised 3/83), a copy of the Shaycoft Plane Geometry Test (forms A and B, booklets, evaluation and adjustment, answer sheets), an interview printed in a local newspaper, an example of Shaycoft's sense of humor, as well as elementary and high school diplomas.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Marion F. Shaycoft (1917-2014), Barnard class of 1938, was a statistician and psychologist.
Shaycoft was born on August 30, 1917 and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. She majored in math as a scholarship student at Barnard College, where she was selected for Phi Beta Kappa and won the Kohn Mathematics Prize. She went on to complete a Master's in measurement and educational research at Teachers College, Columbia University. She did additional graduate work in psychology at University of Pittsburgh.
Shaycoft spent most of her career at Washington-based American Institutes for Research (AIR), where she served as principal research scientist and was one of the lead researchers on Project Talent, a massive survey of nearly 400,000 students in 1,200 high schools conducted for the federal government in the early 1960s. Shaycoft wrote many of the tests and oversaw other tests used in the study, which collected information on aptitude, achievement, aspirations, health and family background.
Before joining AIR in 1951, she worked in developing tests and statistical analyses for the National League of Nursing Education, World Book Company, the Graduate Record Examination Office, and the Cooperative Test Service of the American Council on Education.
Shaycoft was also the author of Handbook of Criterion-Referenced Testing: Development, Evaluation, and Use (1979), a reference work cited in numerous other books and articles on test design.
Beyond school testing, her work included pre-employment testing for pilots, nurses and other occupational groups. Throughout her career at AIR, she advised a number of studies on problems in sampling, measurement, test design and statistical analysis.
Shaycoft died December 10, 2014 at Hillhaven, an assisted living and memory care facility near Washington, D.C. at 97 years of age.
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
This collection has no restrictions.
- Terms of access:
-
Permission to publish material from the collection must be requested from the Barnard Archives and Special Collections. The Barnard Archives and Special Collections approves permission to publish that which it physically owns; the responsibility to secure copyright permission rests with the patron.
Reproductions can be made for research purposes.
- Preferred citation:
-
Marion Shaycoft Papers, 1934-2018; Box and Folder; Barnard Archives and Special Collections, Barnard Library, Barnard College.
- Location of this collection:
-
Milstein Center for Teaching and Learning 423Barnard College3009 BroadwayNew York, NY 10027, USA
- Before you visit:
- Please contact archives@barnard.edu with research requests or to schedule a visit; see our website for more information.
- Contact:
- archives@barnard.edu