Samuel Messick

Samuel J. Messick III (3 April 1931 – 6 October 1998) was an American psychologist professor whose work at the Educational Testing Service examined construct validity.
Messick influenced language testing in 2 main ways: in proposing a new understanding of how inferences made based on tests must be challenged, and in drawing attention to the consequences of test use.
Division 5 of the American Psychological Association named the annual Samuel J. Messick Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award in his honor. One of his collaborators, Douglas N. Jackson, won the award in 2004.

• (ed. with Harold Gulliksen) Psychological scaling: theory and applications; report of a conference. New York: Wiley, 1960.
• (ed. with John Ross) Measurement in personality and cognition. New York: Wiley, 1962.
• (ed. with Silvan Tomkins) Computer simulation of personality: frontier of psychological theory, New York: Wiley, 1963.
• (ed. with Arthur H. Brayfield) Decision and choice; contributions of Sidney Siegel. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964.
• (ed. with Douglas N. Jackson) Problems in human assessment. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967.
• (ed.) Individuality in learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1976.