Vocational Psychology: Its Problems and MethodsHollingworth, Harry L. (Harry Levi)
Science
Vocational Psychology: Its Problems and Methods
Hollingworth, Harry L. (Harry Levi)
Psychophysiology
The absence of complete vocational psychographs has not retarded the search
for tests which, though more or less fragmentary, may have vocational
significance. In fact, there are some twenty types of work for which tests
have already been proposed, recommended, and more or less tentatively tried
out. A brief account of these, with references to the more complete
literature, will be given here, and some attempt made to evaluate the tests
themselves.
Substitutes for the vocational psychograph, in the way of partial and
suggestive tests, have been proposed in four different forms. Since the
work of the immediate future will probably develop along these same lines,
these four forms will be indicated here, and typical illustrations cited in
each case.
A. There is first what may be called the method of the vocational
miniature. Here the entire work, or some selected and important part of it,
is reproduced on a small scale by using toy apparatus or in some such way
duplicating the actual situation which the worker faces when engaged at his
task. Thus McComas, in testing telephone operators, constructed a miniature
switchboard and put the operators through actual calls and responses,
meanwhile measuring their speed and accuracy by means of chronometric
attachments. Stern and others recommend tests of the fidelity of report of
a witness in court by letting him observe some rehearsed scene, some motion
picture representation of a series of events, or some pictorial portrayal
of a scene or episode, and examining into the faithfulness with which he
can describe what he there saw.
B. Closely related to this method of miniature performance is that of
taking an actual piece of the work to be performed and sampling the
candidate's ability by his success in this trial. Thus, in connection with
the recommendation of clerks and assistants from among the boys in
commercial high schools it is common to test their ability from time to
time throughout their course by assigning them small pieces of work similar
to that which they might later be required to perform in business offices
and shops. Finding addresses and numbers in a telephone directory, carrying
out involved verbal instructions and directions from memory, computing
calculations, recommending action on the basis of their figures, making out
a trial balance, a trial chemical analysis, etc., are common forms of this
type of test. In certain cases such specimens of work have been devised in
or taken into the psychological laboratory and the worker watched more
closely and measured more exactly. This has been done, for instance, by
Thorndike in the case of clerical workers and salesmen, by Paynter in the
case of judges of trade-mark infringements, by Scott in the case of
salesmen, and by others in the case of tests for handwriting experts.
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