Vocational Psychology: Its Problems and Methods — John Shaqi
Vocational Psychology: Its Problems and MethodsHollingworth, Harry L. (Harry Levi)
Science
Vocational Psychology: Its Problems and Methods
Hollingworth, Harry L. (Harry Levi)
Psychophysiology
In the standardized form the sizes, shapes and positions are uniformly
adopted and the technique of instruction and procedure is specified. Under
these conditions the time required to complete the task by normal children
of the ages five to fourteen years has been recorded. Sylvester presents a
curve based on the examination of 1,537 normal children. The curve shows
the average time of performance for each age and also indicates the range
of performance for each age. In the case of a given individual it is thus
easy, by referring to the standard table of norms, to determine whether he
is up to the normal record for his age, whether he is within the normal
range of variation for this age, and how deficient or precocious he may be
in this respect. Tables of this type are now being accumulated for a great
variety of single standard tests.
In addition to scales of this type, which proceed by setting for the
individual a graded series of tasks and determining his success in their
accomplishment, there is a further type of graded scale which is now
represented by several standard specimens. This is the type of scale which
is designed to afford an instrument for the measurement of such products as
the actual work of the individual incidentally yields. Thorndike's "Scale
for the Measurement of Handwriting" is the model on which many of the later
scales of this type have been based. In this scale actual specimens of
handwriting are arranged in a graduated series in such a way that the steps
from specimen to specimen are equally appreciable or noticeable, and in
this sense uniform. When such a scale extends from an actual zero point, it
is possible to "measure" the quality of handwriting in quite the same way
as that in which one measures the height of an individual or the length of
a table. The quantitative measure consists in the statement of the number
of stages which intervene between that quality of product represented by
the specimen and the zero point of the scale. The position assigned to the
specimen being measured is determined by moving the specimen along the
graded series of standards until a point is reached where the specimen
seems, on the basis of direct inspection, to belong. Such scales have been
formulated for various special forms of school work, such as handwriting,
drawing, arithmetic, literary composition, mechanical construction, etc. By
such means it is possible not only to measure the "general intelligence" of
the worker, but also his actual ability in creating a definite type of
product. There seems to be no limit to the possibilities of scales of this
form, and their value in determining the more definite and particular
capacities, whether from the point of view of original endowment or from
the point of view of the effects of training, is obvious.
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