Marion Webster Richardson

{{short description|American educational psychologist and psychometrician.}}

Marion Webster Richardson (1896–1965) was an American educational psychologist and psychometrician. He was a founder of the Psychometric Society and a founder and editor of Psychometrika. He was a co-developer of the Kuder–Richardson Formula 20.{{cite journal |last1=Lorr |first1=Maurice |last2=Heiser |first2=Ruth Bishop |title=Marion Webster Richardson (1896–1965) |journal=Psychometrika |date=1965 |volume=30 |issue=3 |pages=235–237 |doi=10.1007/bf02289489|pmid=5322827 |s2cid=8477006 }}

One of his most remarkable contributions was the introduction of the technique of multidimensional scaling. His contribution is twofold: he applied the method for the first time—he applied scaling to similarities of colors obtaining a two dimensional representation—{{Cite journal|title = Multidimensional scaling: I. Theory and method|journal = Psychometrika |date = 1952|pages = 401–419|volume = 17|first = W.S.|last = Torgerson|issue = 4 |doi = 10.1007/BF02288916|s2cid = 120849755 }} and, additionally, he motivated the first algorithm to the problem, the seminal paper of Young and Householder.{{Cite journal|title = Discussion of a set of points in terms of their mutual distances|journal = Psychometrika|date = 1938|pages = 19–22|volume = 3|first1 = G|last1 = Young| first2=A.S.| last2=Householder| doi=10.1007/BF02287916|s2cid = 122400126}} Sadly, his original paper was a conference proceeding from which only the abstract remains.{{Cite journal|title = Multimensional psychophysics|journal = Psychological Bulletin |date = 1938|pages = 659–660|volume = 35|first = MW|last = Richardson}}