SERA Bruce Thompson Extended Service Award

In 2022, the SERA Board renamed the SERA Extended Service Award the “SERA Bruce Thompson Extended Service Award” in recognition of Bruce’s career-long contributions to the Southwest Educational Research Association.

Bruce Thompson was among the first members of SERA and continuously attended 40+ SERA annual meetings. Bruce has served as an At-Large Member of the SERA Board. Prior to the time that SERA combined the Program Chair role with the office of President-Elect, Bruce first served as Program Chair and then later as SERA President. In the early 1990s Bruce served as Editor of the SERA annual book series, which was an edited commercially-published volume containing selected SERA conference papers chosen by peer review. Bruce began service as inaugural SERA Executive Director when the By-Laws were accordingly amended in 2000, and this position was first created, until he ended service as Executive Director in 2014. Bruce continues to serve now as SERA Executive Director Emeritus, and as SERA Historian. In 2006, Bruce was awarded the SERA Extended Service Award. Bruce was three times recipient of the SERA Outstanding Paper Award, an award for which officers of the Association are not eligible during service in elected or appointed SERA Board roles.

Before his retirement, Bruce Thompson was Distinguished Professor and College Distinguished Research fellow of Educational Psychology, Distinguished Professor of Library Science, Texas A&M University, and Adjunct Professor of Allied Health Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine (Houston). He was Co-Editor of the Teaching, Learning, and Human Development section of the American Educational Research Journal (AERJ:TLHD), and past editor for 9 years of Educational & Psychological Measurement, the series, Advances in Social Science Methodology, and two other journals. He is the author of 220 journal articles, author/editor of 11 books, including Foundations of Behavioral Statistics and Exploratory & Confirmatory Factor Analysis, and the author of 20 book chapters. His contributions have been especially influential in moving the field regarding greater emphasis on effect size reporting and interpretation and promoting improved understanding of score reliability. Interested SERA members can learn more about Bruce by visiting his bridge lessons Esther Bridge Lessons webpage, or by watching his TAMU Writing Center lecture “How to Publish Scholarly Journal Articles”.