Michael Scriven


Michael John Scriven is a British-born Australian polymath and academic philosopher, best known for his contributions to the theory and practice of evaluation.

Biography

Scriven was born in the UK and grew up in Melbourne, Australia. He holds BSc and MS degrees in mathematics from the University of Melbourne, where he was in residence at Trinity College from 1946, winning an entrance scholarship. He then completed a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Oxford.
Scriven is a past president of the American Educational Research Association and the American Evaluation Association. He is also an editor and co-founder of the Journal of MultiDisciplinary Evaluation. He is currently a distinguished professor at Claremont Graduate University in California.
He has spent most of his career in the United States. He became a full Professor at the age of 32. His major appointments were:
Scriven has made significant contributions in the fields of philosophy, psychology, critical thinking, mathematics, and, most notably, evaluation theory and the establishment of evaluation as a transdiscipline. Scriven's work in education has influenced the work of many scholars, including that of Robert E. Stake, Ernest R. House, and Gene V Glass.
He has produced over 400 scholarly publications and has served on the editorial review boards of 42 journals.

Awards

Scriven has been awarded numerous awards, including:
In 2012, an article published in the Journal of MultiDisciplinary Evaluation posed the necessity of a Scriven number. Similar to an Erdős number, a Scriven number describes a person’s degree of separation from Dr. Scriven through published collaborations directly with him or with others who have collaborated with him. Michael Scriven holds the unique Scriven number of 0 while any persons publishing directly with him hold a Scriven number of 1. In addition, those who have published with those individuals who have directly published with Dr. Scriven hold a Scriven number of 2. This algorithmic format continues indefinitely. For those published with multiple papers with paths to Dr. Scriven, the shortest path will serve as the Scriven number. This type of number is hypothesized to help centralize the field of evaluation.