Vocational Psychology: Its Problems and Methods

by Harry L. Hollingworth; Leta Stetter Hollingworth

As rapidly as reliable norms are established, it becomes possible to select for each age, school grade, occupation, etc., a set of tests which the average person of that age, schooling or calling should be able to perform to a certain known degree of proficiency. Failure to accomplish this indicates performance lower than that expected and in so far as success is dependent solely on mental ability, indicates inferior capacity. Similarly, ability to do more than the average or normal record requires indicates a capacity that is precocious, rare, and superior.

In this way are derived standard graded scales which represent a decided advance in the science of psychological diagnosis. There are three rather different forms in which attempts have been made to secure such scales. In one form the scale consists of a series of steps, each step consisting of different sorts of performance; that is, different tests or tasks are used. These tasks are arranged in groups, each group representing tests which should be passed acceptably by individuals of the given age, school grade, etc. In another form of scale the type of task is the same throughout, but the different points on the scale are represented by increasingly difficult specimens of material. The scale thus presents graded steps of difficulty in doing the same general sort of thing. In the third form the task remains precisely the same throughout, and performance is measured in terms of the time in which the task can be completed and the accuracy which is displayed. Sometimes, in scales of this type, although the instructions are always the same, the test is performed with varying degrees of approximation to a qualitative standard, and the steps may then consist of these graded qualitative achievements.

As representative of the first form of scale we may refer to the widely used Binet-Simon scale for the determination of mental age. Whatever we mean by intelligence, it is a characteristic which is essential to vocational activity. It is furthermore a characteristic which normally tends to increase in its degree or manifestation from infancy up to at least ten or twelve years of age. Beyond that point there are, to be sure, striking individual differences in that characteristic which we call intelligence, but beyond this point it does not seem so dependent on the physical age of the organism. Five-year-old children tend to be pretty much alike in intelligence. At least, the change from five years to seven years is commonly attended by very apparent growth in this respect, and a five-year-old is more like other five-year-olds in the things he can do than he is like seven-year-olds.

Experiment and observation show that the ages up to ten or twelve tend to indicate rather definite mental status, in the long run, although, to be sure, children of a given age vary considerably from one another. But beyond this point the age of an individual is not by any means an indication of the sort or degree of ability to be expected of him. The further we go beyond this point, the less significant becomes the mere statement of the individual's age. We may thus indicate the mental attainment of a child of less than twelve years by stating the average age of children who can do the things, know the facts, display the abilities that he can. This figure we will use to indicate his mental age as distinguished from his chronological or physical or actual age. A record-blank which enumerates the tests comprising the Binet-Simon scale is given in the Appendix. Those who may be interested in using this or similar scales should familiarize themselves with some of the many books and manuals that have been written concerning them, the methods of using them, their characteristic results and their evaluation. These scales will be again considered in a later section, when we discuss the measures of general intelligence as they relate to vocational guidance and selection.

Other scales than the Binet-Simon series have been proposed, and this series has itself undergone modifications at the hands of later investigators—changes calculated to render it more reliable and adaptable. Much work is now being done in the attempt to develop scales or sets of tests which will reveal characteristic differences among people whose mentality has gone beyond the point which the juvenile scales reach.

The work of Trabue in standardizing the "completion test" so that individuals may be quantitatively compared on the basis of it may serve as an example of the second form of scale. This particular test consists in requiring the individual to supply meaningful words or phrases in the blank spaces formed by mutilating logical text. It is similar to the simple exercise sometimes found in elementary text books of grammar and spelling. It seems that the ability to supply the missing words or phrases quickly in such mutilated material calls for the exercise of a type of ability which correlates to a high degree with most other measures of intelligence. Individual differences as shown by school grades, age, opinion of teachers, estimates of associates, results of other mental tests, etc., are readily and with considerable reliability revealed in the individual's ability to perform this type of test. This investigator has, after much preliminary labor, constructed a form of this test in which the material gradually increases in difficulty from beginning to end. Efficiency in the test may be measured by the point one can reach in the text in a given time. This test has been standardized, not on the basis of physical age, as in the case of the Binet-Simon scale, but on the basis of school grade, from the second grade through the high school, some four or six years beyond the point where the Binet-Simon scale ceases to be useful. A copy of this test is also given in the Appendix. Those who wish to use it should consult the original description of it, for technique, precautions, norms, and interpretation.

A good example of the third form of scale is to be found in Sylvester's standardization of the "form-board" test. The "form-board" is one of the most useful tests in detecting intellectual defect that is so pronounced as to constitute the individual a "mental defective." Out of a solid base board are cut various geometrical forms, such as diamonds, stars, squares, triangular blocks, etc. These blocks are placed alongside the base from which they have been cut. The task is that of replacing all the blocks in their appropriate places, with the greatest possible speed. The test tends to reveal characteristic defects in understanding instructions, perceiving the general and specific situations, profiting by experience, recognizing form and size and other space relations, etc. The individual may work blind-folded or may use his eyes.

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.

These various scales for measuring general intelligence have been used chiefly for the purposes of educational diagnosis, in determining the degree of backwardness of children in the grades, their need for special educational attention, or the hopelessness of further pedagogical effort with them. But it is obvious at once that tests of this type are of great use to an employer in eliminating, from among the candidates for work, those who are hopelessly mentally defective, feeble-minded, and irresponsible. There are many sorts of work in which the employment of feeble-minded persons, unrecognizable as such by their physical traits or by a casual inspection, not only entails loss and annoyance but may constitute a positive danger and constant menace to those who rely on the defective individual. Such work as that of delivery boys, messengers, domestic servants, nurses, elevator operators, drivers, motormen, etc., may be cited as instances of work into which the feeble-minded easily slip, unless there is some standardized means of recognizing them.