Jeffrey Scott Tanaka
Born1958
Los Angeles, California, United States
DiedNovember 3, 1992(1992-11-03) (aged 34)
Bondville, Illinois, United States
OccupationProfessor of educational psychology
Academic background
Alma materUniversity of California, Los Angeles (A.B., M.A., PhD)
Academic work
DisciplinePsychologist
Institutions
Main interestsPsychometrics, multivariate statistics, social psychology, cognition, information processing

Jeffrey Scott Tanaka[1] (1958 – November 3, 1992) was an American psychologist and statistician, known for his work in educational psychology, social psychology and various fields of statistics including structural equation modeling.

Biography

Tanaka was born in Los Angeles in 1958[2] to parents Margaret and Shoji Tanaka.[3] In 1979, Tanaka received an A.B. (cum laude) in quantitative psychology at UCLA, followed by an M.A. in psychology in 1980 and a PhD in psychometrics in 1984.[4]

His professional academic career began at New York University (NYU), where he was assistant professor of psychology from 1983. In 1990, he joined the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign as associate professor while continuing his career at NYU as visiting research associate professor.[4]

Tanaka applied himself in a wide range of fields. As a psychologist, he worked in social psychology, educational psychology[5] and cognition. In statistics, his research interests included structural equation modeling,[6] factor analysis and categorical data analysis.[4]

On November 3, 1992, Tanaka died in an automobile accident near Bondville, Illinois[3] at the age of 34.[2][5]

Legacy

Due to his work with the American Psychological Association (APA) in raising awareness for ethnic minority issues in academia (Tanaka was an ethnic minority himself), the APA named their Jeffrey S. Tanaka Dissertation Award in his memory.[4][7]

In 1993, the Journal of Personality started to run a series of papers titled The Jeffrey S. Tanaka Occasional Papers in Quantitative Methods for Personality in Tanaka's memory. As of 2011, papers were still being written for the series.[8]

In 1994, the Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology introduced the Tanaka Award for Best Article in Multivariate Behavioral Research, given annually to the authors of the most outstanding paper in the Multivariate Behavioral Research journal.[9]

Publications

Selected academic works

The works below are listed by number of times cited (descending), according to data from Google Scholar (correct as of January 2017).

References

  1. ^ Appelbaum, Mark I. (December 1980). "Minutes of the Annual Business Meeting of the Psychometric Society" (PDF). Psychometrika. 45 (4): 507–509. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 14, 2017. Retrieved January 14, 2017.
  2. ^ a b Cudeck, Robert; Chaplin, Bill; Harlow, Lisa; La Du, Terence J.; Panter, A. T.; Strauman, Tim (1993). "Jeffrey S. Tanaka 1958-1992". Multivariate Behavioral Research. 28 (2): 161–170. doi:10.1207/s15327906mbr2802_1.
  3. ^ a b "Jeffrey S. Tanaka, 34, Psychology Professor". The New York Times. November 12, 1992.
  4. ^ a b c d Harlow, Lisa L. (1994). "In memoriam: Jeffrey S. Tanaka". Structural Equation Modeling. 1 (1): 2–4. doi:10.1080/10705519409539959.
  5. ^ a b "Jeffrey S. Tanaka; Educational Psychologist, Writer". Los Angeles Times. November 14, 1992.
  6. ^ Tanaka, J. S. (February 1987). ""How big is big enough?": sample size and goodness of fit in structural equation models with latent variables". Child Development. 58 (1): 134–146. doi:10.2307/1130296. JSTOR 1130296.
  7. ^ "Jeffrey S. Tanaka Memorial Dissertation Award in Psychology". American Psychological Association. Retrieved January 14, 2017.
  8. ^ Tennen, Howard (January 11, 2011). "Announcement: The Jeffrey S. Tanaka Occasional Papers in Quantitative Methods for Personality". Journal of Personality. 79 (1): 1. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.2010.00681_1.x. S2CID 145189550.
  9. ^ "Tanaka Award for Best Article in Multivariate Behavioral Research". Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology. Retrieved September 29, 2018.
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