(For full details of the Alpha test the reader is referred to Appendix B to this volume.)
The highest score a man could make in the Alpha test was 212. This is an absolutely perfect score, a correct answer or response to every one of the 212 questions or examples; but any man who made a score above 135 was given the highest possible rating, Grade A, in the mental schedule. There were seven ratings in all: A, above 135; B, which included those making 104 to 135; C, plus, which took in those down to a score of 75; C, for those scoring from 45 to 74; C, minus, for those with scores of 25 to 44; D, for the ones who gave from 15 to 24 correct answers; and D, minus, for those who were unable to answer correctly more than 14 out of the 212 questions.
Now for the proof! Here is an official report of one of many comparisons made between the results of the psychological tests and the actual observations and personal knowledge of men by their officers.
The commanding officers of ten different organizations, representing various arms of service in one camp, were asked to designate (a) the most efficient men in their organizations, (b) the men of average value and (c) the men so inferior that they were barely able to perform their duties. The officers had been with these men from six to twelve months and knew them exceptionally well. The total number of men rated was 965, about equally divided between the three classifications.
After the officers’ ratings had been made, the men were given the Alpha test, and the comparison of results showed that the average score recorded in this test by those men the officers had graded as “best” was approximately twice as high as those the officers termed their poorest men. Of men scoring C, minus, in the Alpha test, 70 per cent. were those classed by the officers as their poorest men and only 4.4 per cent. of those ranked with the ones whom the officers regarded as best. Of all the men whose scores were above C, plus, 55.5 per cent. had been graded by their officers as their best men and only 15 per cent. as among their poorest soldiers.
In another camp 765 men of a regular infantry regiment, who had been with their officers for several months, were graded by their officers in five classes, according to their practical military value. Seventy-six of these men were rated either A or B by the Alpha test; all but nine of these had been graded “one” and “two” by their officers, and none of them had been placed in the lowest grade.
Out of 238 of these soldiers who scored D or D, minus, in the psychological test, all but eight had been placed in the three lowest grades by their officers. The psychological ratings and the ratings of the company commanders were identical in 49.5 per cent. of all cases. In 88.4 per cent. of the cases the agreement was within one step, and in only seven tenths of 1 per cent. was there a disagreement between the psychological test results and the officers’ ratings of more than two steps.
Here is another comparison. Sixty company commanders each named his ten best and ten poorest privates. Without any knowledge on the part of the psychological examiners in this or in any other of the comparative tests as to the ratings the officers had given the men, the Alpha gave the grade of D or D, minus, to 57.5 per cent. of those picked as the poorest and placed all but a fractional percentage of 1,118 men in the same classes in which they had been placed by their officers on the basis of observation and experience.
Those who failed in the Group tests were given individual attention by the clinical psychologist. The examination here was frequently by the Stanford Revision of the Binet test or by the Yerkes-Bridges Point Scale. For men who could not understand the instructions and the language necessary for taking these two tests a series of specially devised performance tests, consisting chiefly of picture puzzles, cubes, squares, crescents, and other forms cut from wood, were provided. The assumption was that a man who has not intelligence enough to place a triangular block in a perfectly obvious triangular hole, or to piece together the six or seven parts which, when properly assembled, make up the figure of a man or a ship is so hopelessly deficient mentally as to be not only of no value, but a positive detriment to the Army. In many instances fully grown men with the mentality of children seven or eight years old were thus weeded out from among the recruits who had successfully passed the physical tests and been inducted into the service. Men making the D, minus, or E score in either the Alpha or the Beta tests were graded as of very inferior intelligence; D, minus, men were held to be fit for regular service but the E men were recommended for service in the development battalions or for discharge.
About 15 per cent. of all the soldiers examined were scored in the D class. They were ranked as of inferior intelligence, likely to be fairly good soldiers but slow in learning, short on initiative, requiring more than the usual amount of supervision, and unable to rise above the grade of private. Most D, minus, and E men were below the mental age of ten years; few men making a psychological score of D had the intelligence of the average normal fourteen-year-old boy. About 20 per cent. of the 1,500,000 soldiers examined by the psychological method made the score of C, minus, which indicated low average intelligence. These men were good soldiers, however, and did satisfactory work in routine matters. The C men, those of average intelligence, included about 25 per cent. of the drafted men and furnished a fair proportion of non-commissioned material.