Campbell, Donald T.

(b. 1917, d. May 6, 1996). Ph.D. Psychology, A.B. Psychology, University of California, Berkeley.

Donald Campbell was University Professor of Social Relations, Psychology, and Education at Lehigh University until he retired in 1994. Previously, he held faculty positions at Northwestern University, Syracuse University, University of Chicago, and The Ohio State University, as well as lecturing at Oxford, Harvard, and Yale Universities. He also served in the U.S. Naval Reserve during World War II.

Campbell's intellectual concerns were broad and covered psychological theory, methods, sociology of science, and descriptive epistemology. He is most widely known for his work on experimental and quasi-experimental research design, which greatly influenced the entire field of research and evaluation designs. His development of a basic taxonomy that distinguishes between “true” (randomized) experiments, quasiexperiments, and nonexperimental designs has dramatically shaped inquiry discussions to date. He was particularly interested in improving the ways in which scientists learn about the real world and in the identification and control of sources of bias that preclude that knowledge.

He is the author of more than 235 journal articles in the areas of social psychology, sociology, anthropology, education, and philosophy, covering a broad scope of topics. He is most widely known, however, for the articles “Convergent and Discriminant Validation by the Multitrait-Multimethod Matrix” (with Donald W. Fiske, 1959), “Experimentation and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research” (with Julian C. Stanley, 1973), and for Quasi-Experimentation: Design and Analysis Issues for Field Settings (with Thomas D. Cook, 1979). He was the recipient of numerous honorary degrees and awards, including the 1977 Alva and Gunnar Myrdal Science Award from the American Evaluation Association, the American Psychological Association's Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award, and the Distinguished Contribution to Research in Education Award from the American Educational Research Association. He also served as president of the American Psychological Association and was a member of the National Academy of Sciences.