John C. Raven

It would appear that Raven was one of the few people (another was Louis Guttman) who appreciated the importance of developing tests which yielded something approaching an interval scale (although that term was not the stated objective of either author). Among other things, this meant that the sequence of item difficulties must be the same for persons of all levels of ability. In order to demonstrate this ... and identify those items which needed to be modified or rejected ... Raven plotted what have since become known in Item Response Theory terminology as Item Characteristic Curves. (When Georg Rasch appeared on the scene in the late 1950s and developed a mathematical model for doing this he tested it on the RPM and was satisfied when it worked!)

But, to return to Raven's historical career: After working on various research grants, he was, in 1944, offered a post as Director of Psychological Research at the Crichton Royal (mental) Hospital in Dumfries, Scotland. Two things were remarkable about the terms of reference Raven negotiated for this appointment: First that it should be a part-time one so that he could focus on topics of his own choice without having to negotiate institutional approval. Second, the terms of reference for the department were that it should largely focus on studies of the normal in order that these might throw light on the abnormal. (It may be thought that this was hardly necessary because are not the journals full of such studies? Indeed, not. Firstly, most of the studies are based on captive populations of students [which limits their generalisability]. And, secondly, the range of topics studied is largely limited to those that can be conducted in literature-oriented laboratory studies, as distinct from problem-oriented studies.)

The first versions of what were later termed the Colored Progressive Matrices (CPM) (designed to spread the scores of the less able).and the Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM) were published in 1938.

John Carlyle Raven (28 June 1902 – 10 August 1970) was an English psychologist known for his contributions to psychometrics.

John Carlyle Raven was born in London on 28 June 1902. His interest in psychology developed at an early age. Despite problems posed by the early death of his father – leaving him with a mother and two sisters to care for, and discouragement from his school teachers on account of his dyslexia, he insisted on pursuing these interests.