Tyler was born on April 22, 1902, in Chicago to a professional family. His maternal grandfather was in the Civil War and had been appointed as a judge in Washington by president Ulysses S. Grant.[3] His father, William Augustus Tyler, had been raised in a farm, and had become a doctor. Being deeply religious, there came a time when both of Tyler's parent thought that the medical profession was too lucrative and that they should realign their priorities, at which point his father became a Congregational minister.[4] As the sixth of eight children, Tyler grew up in Nebraska where he recalled having to trap animals for food and wear donated clothing. He worked at various jobs while growing up, including his first job at age twelve in a creamery.
Tyler went to college during the day and worked as a telegraph operator for the railroad at night. He received his bachelor's degree in 1921 at the age of 19 from Doane College in Crete, Nebraska. There was a time when Tyler wanted to become a missionary in Rhodesia, but he declined because he had no formal instruction in ministry,[5] unlike his younger brother who had gone to Yale Divinity School. However, later all the brothers pursued a career in the field of education.[6]
His first teaching job was as a high school science teacher in Pierre, South Dakota. In 1923, Tyler wrote a science test for high school students which helped him "see the holes in testing only for memorization." He earned his master's degree from the University of Nebraska in 1923 and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1927.
His graduate work at the University of Chicago connected him with notable educators Charles Judd and W. W. Charters, whose ideas influenced Tyler’s later work in curriculum development and evaluation. Tyler’s first appointment was at the University of North Carolina in 1927, where he worked with state teachers to improve curricula. Later in 1927, Tyler joined the faculty at Ohio State University, where he refined his innovative approach to testing while working with Charters, who was the director of the university's Bureau of Educational Research. Tyler helped Ohio State University faculty to improve their teaching and increase student retention. He is credited with coining the term, "evaluation," for aligning measurement and testing with educational objectives. Because his concept of evaluation consisted of gathering comprehensive evidence of learning rather than just paper and pencil tests, Tyler might even be viewed as an early proponent of portfolio assessment.
Tyler headed the evaluation staff of the "Eight-Year Study" (1933–1941), a national program, involving 30 secondary schools and 300 colleges and universities, that addressed narrowness and rigidity in high school curricula. He first gained prominence in 1938 when he was lured by Robert Maynard Hutchins from Ohio State University to the University of Chicago to continue his work there. In 1953, Tyler became the first director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, a position he held until his retirement in 1967.