Measure Your Mind: The Mentimeter and How to Use ItTrabue, Marion Rex
Science
Measure Your Mind: The Mentimeter and How to Use It
Trabue, Marion Rex
Educational tests and measurements; Intelligence tests; Psychological tests
The results obtained by the separate tests chosen should also be
compared, for two tests may measure practically the same mental trait
and have a very high coördination with each other. In such a case, it
would seem almost a useless waste to retain in the group two tests which
measured the same phase of ability. The one of the pair which showed the
less close relationship to the true ranking might be dropped from the
list without much loss to the total effectiveness of the group of tests.
A group of tests thus carefully selected would prove very helpful and
effective in the selection of untrained material for training or in the
classification of experienced employees according to their intellectual
qualifications for the type of position held by the people on whom the
validity of the tests had been proved.
The advantage of such a well-selected “team” of tests is not so much
that it selects various grades of ability more accurately than
supervisors could select it after many months of experience in trying to
train the new material, but that the tests make a satisfactory
classification immediately, which saves the salaries and time of those
applicants who would certainly fail in the training period. Even with
the very best coefficients of coördination between the tests and actual
demonstrated ability in the trade or position, the tests will not be
infallible. On the other hand, no supervisor’s judgment would be
infallible, either. And the supervisor would be much more likely to make
errors through personal likes and dislikes than the impersonal tests
could possibly be.
The tests are an invaluable aid, when they are themselves chosen with
the scientific care outlined above, although it would be a short-sighted
policy for any firm to trust entirely to the results of intelligence
tests in the employment of its personnel. Appearance, voice, education,
manners, physical size, and many other qualities are sometimes quite as
important as the degree of intelligence, and the intelligence tests do
not measure other elements of personality than the mental qualities.
Warning should also be given against using a particular set of
intelligence tests, selected because they show high correspondence with
ability in salesmanship, for example, as a measure of the intellectual
qualities of candidates for some other position. Sets of tests, selected
because they have been found accurate in classifying soldiers or school
children for instruction, may not be of maximum usefulness in
classifying machinists or business managers. The Mentimeter tests offer
a wide variety, from which it is proposed that only those shall be used
which have actually proved useful in classifying candidates for the
particular task concerned. There is no reason to believe that exactly
the same type of intelligence is required in all positions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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