Those in the C, plus, rating, which indicated high average intelligence, included from about 15 to 18 per cent. of all the soldiers examined. This group provided not only a large amount of non-commissioned officer material, but an occasional soldier whose qualities of leadership and power to command fitted him for a commission.
A man who made a score of B in the Alpha test was graded as of superior intelligence. Between 8 and 10 per cent. of all soldiers examined made the B score. This group included a large proportion of men of the commissioned officer type and a very large proportion of men fit for the higher non-commissioned officers’ details.
Only 4 to 5 per cent. of the men in the Army made the score of A in the Alpha test, which means that they were able to answer in the given time, correctly, more than 135 of the 212 questions in the test. These were men of very superior intelligence—indeed, of marked intellectuality. Men of this mental type who had any leadership ability whatsoever made the various grades of commissioned officers.
The practical application of the psychological tests covered a very wide range. The highest intelligence among enlisted men was required in the Field Artillery, Machine-Gun Battalions, and Signal Corps. Men of the lowest grade of intelligence served as labourers, teamsters, and in other non-combatant service, while men only slightly below the average performed the duties of an infantryman satisfactorily.
By the application of the mental tests it was found possible to bring up the average of particular companies, regiments, and detachments, by exchanging men of high mentality from one regiment for an equal number of men of the lower mental grade from another regiment in which the average of ability was low. A great saving of time and energy was made possible by being able to determine that a particular soldier, on the strength of his psychological score, was qualified to become a good artilleryman, machine gunner, or signal-corps man, or what not. If only in preventing the loading up of combatant divisions with men qualified only for the service of supply, the work of the psychologists made possible the elimination of incalculable delay in getting our overseas contingent ready to fight.
The intelligence tests used in the Army were admittedly imperfect at many points. They were especially designed for and adapted to the testing of a very much larger group than is ever likely again to be subjected to any single test or series of tests, and so, for most civilian purposes, these Alpha and Beta tests cannot be taken as a fair or complete system of ascertaining all the facts which mental tests ought to disclose. But at the time and for their particular purpose they functioned admirably, as all persons familiar with the result obtained will concede.
CHAPTER VII
PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS IN EDUCATION
Just as intelligence tests in the Army have developed a new appreciation of the significance of analyses of intelligence as a means of selecting the right man for the right place in the military machine, so have scientifically devised mental tests emphasized the possibilities of more rapid and satisfactory progress in our educational activities.
The application of psychology to the measurement of teaching methods in institutions of learning is of comparatively recent origin. Up to ten years ago we had been able to make very little use of tests for the measurement of intelligence in schools, colleges, and universities. We were fighting blindly, as it were, to overcome the problems which faced us at every turn. We had no concrete guide, for instance, in our efforts to select proper courses of study for children and adults of various mental capacities, nor could we decide upon uniform efforts toward the disposal of such questions as vocational guidance, schoolroom procedure, juvenile delinquency, promotional schemes, retardation of children, and the proper treatment of sub-normal and gifted pupils.
The retardation problem, for example, has become serious. Statistics indicate that from one third to one half of the children in the public schools of the United States fail to advance with the speed expected of them. Ten to 15 per cent. are retarded two years or more. Five to 8 per cent. do not come within three years of the state of development set as a standard. More than 10 per cent. of the $500,000,000 spent every year in this country for school instruction purposes is used for reteaching children what they already have been “taught” but have failed to learn.