The Survey, Volume 30, Number 3, Apr 19, 1913Various
History
The Survey, Volume 30, Number 3, Apr 19, 1913
Various
Charities -- Periodicals; Social problems -- Periodicals; United States -- Social conditions -- Periodicals
Tried motormen, says Professor Munsterberg, agree that they really pass
through this experiment with the feeling they have on the car. Though
the test is not regarded as yet perfected, its results are thought to be
fairly satisfactory when compared with actual efficiency in service.
Efficiency, in this connection, means chiefly ability to avoid
accidents. Some electric railroad companies have as many as 50,000
accident indemnity cases per year which involve an expense amounting in
some instances to 13 per cent of the annual gross earnings. Professor
Munsterberg believes that it may be quite advantageous later on to
subject applicants for the position of motorman to tests based on the
principle involved in the one here described. Even in this inadequate
form, he thinks, the test would be sufficient to exclude perhaps
one-fourth of those who are nowadays accepted for service.
In a public address recently Leonard P. Ayres, director of the Division
of Education of the Russell Sage Foundation, brought together all the
psychological tests in vocational guidance which, so far as he has been
able to discover, are being used in any completed form. Besides the
simpler tests for vision, hearing and color discrimination to which
pilots, ship officers and railroad employes are usually subjected, there
are only three, he said, which have for their object the more difficult
task of selecting from among all the applicants those best fitted to
perform the work. One of these is Professor Munsterberg’s test for
motormen.
Another is a test used in a bicycle ball factory, where girls inspect
the small polished steel balls for flaws by rolling them over and over
on one hand with the fingers of the other and examining them under a
strong light. S. E. Thompson, the employer, soon recognized that the
quality most necessary in the girls, besides endurance and industry, was
a quick power of perception accompanied by quick responsive action. He
therefore subjected his girls to the laboratory test which measures in
thousandths of a second the time needed to react on an impression with
the quickest possible movement. The final outcome was that thirty-five
girls did the work formerly done by 120; the accuracy of the work was
increased by 66 per cent; the wages of the girls were doubled; the
working day decreased from 10½ to 8½ hours; and the profits of the
factory were increased.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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