The importance of tact.
It goes without saying that children’s personalities are not so uniform and simple that we can adhere always to a single stereotyped procedure in working our way into their good graces. Suggestions like the above have their value, but, like rules of etiquette, they must be supported by the tact which comes of intuition and cannot be taught. The address which flatters and pleases one child may excite disgust in another. The examiner must scent the situation and adapt his method to it. One child is timid and embarrassed; another may think his mental powers are under suspicion and so react with sullen obstinacy; a third may be in an angry mood as a result of a recent playground quarrel. Situations like these are, of course, exceptional, but in any case it is necessary to create in the child a certain mood, or indefinable attitude of mind, before the test begins.
Personality of the examiner.
Doubtless there are persons so lacking in personal adaptability that success in this kind of work would be for them impossible. The wooden, mechanical, matter-of-fact and unresponsive personality is as much out of place in the psychological clinic as the traditional bull in the china shop. It would make an interesting study for some one to investigate, by exact methods, the influence on test results of the personality of different examiners who have been equally trained in the methods to be employed and who are equally conscientious in applying them according to rules.
On the whole, differences of this kind are probably not very great among experienced and reasonably competent examiners. Adaptability grows with experience and with increase of self-confidence. After a few score tests there should be no serious failure from inability to get into rapport with the child. Even in those rare cases where the child breaks down and cries from timidity, or perhaps refuses to answer out of embarrassment, the difficulty can be overcome by sufficient tact so that the examination may proceed as though nothing had happened.
If the examiner has the proper psychological and personal equipment, the testing of twenty or thirty children forms a fairly satisfactory apprenticeship. Without psychological training, no amount of experience will guarantee absolute accuracy of the results.
The avoidance of fatigue.
Against the validity of intelligence tests it is often argued that the result of an examination depends a great deal on the time of day when it is made, whether in the morning hours when the mind is at its best, or in the afternoon when it is supposedly fatigued. Although no very extensive investigation has been made of this influence, there is no evidence that the ordinary fatigue incident to school work injures the child’s performance appreciably. Our tests of 1000 children showed no inferiority of results secured from 1 to 4 p.m., as compared with tests made from 9 to 12 a.m.
An explanation for this is not hard to find. Although school work causes fatigue, in the sense that a part of the child’s available supply of mental energy is used up, there is always a reserve of energy sufficient to carry the child through a thirty-to fifty-minute test. The fact that the required tasks are novel and interesting to a high degree insures that the reserve energy will really be brought into play. This principle, of course, has its natural limits. The examiner would avoid testing a child who was exhausted either from work or play, or a child who was noticeably sleepy.