The tests were analyzed both by correlation methods referring to the group as a whole, and by inspection of scatter diagrams referring to individual students. By devising a critical score it was possible to arrive at a mental-test rating. The results of this system of rating indicated, according to Prof. L. L. Thurstone, of the Carnegie Institute, that:
(a) Seven out of eleven failures could have been eliminated at the beginning of the year.
(b) Eight out of seventeen students placed on probation for poor scholarship should have been eliminated at the beginning of the year.
(c) Not one of the students who were below the critical mental-test rating was acceptable as a student. All of them should have been spared the discouragement which comes from failure and should have been advised to take up some other work.
(d) None of the acceptable students scored below the lower critical mental-test rating.
(e) All of the freshmen rated high by the faculty were above the average in the mental-test rating.
(f) Mental tests have been demonstrated to constitute a useful criterion for admission to college.
In October, 1918, first-year men in Brown University were given two series of psychological tests, an interval of several days separating the administration of Series I and II. Emphasis was placed upon thought and accuracy, rather than upon speed. Two hundred and ten students of the same University took the Alpha test of the Army in January, 1919. Of these men, 103 also had taken the Brown University tests, Series I and II. This made a comparison possible.
Two hundred and twelve men took Series I. Both the average and median were 66 on the basis of 100 as a maximum score. One hundred and seventy-eight men, all of whom had taken Series I, took Series II. It was administered after the students had begun military training of a rigorous nature and when they were far from fresh. The composite score of Series I and Series II, made from the records of one hundred and seventy-eight men who had taken both tests, showed that the Brown University Series proved as good as a measure of scholastic standing as did the Army test for military fitness.
Prof. Stephen S. Colvin, of Brown University, writing on these psychological tests, says that in addition to the evidence obtained by correlating the test results and the students’ academic marks, as to the relation between the scores of the psychological tests and academic standing, there is further indication that the psychological tests proved of considerable value in showing the probable success of a student in his academic work.