Report of the Consultative Committee on psychological tests of educable capacity and their possible use in the public system of education.

  • Great Britain. Board of Education. Consultative Committee.
Date:
1924
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Consultative Committee on psychological tests of educable capacity and their possible use in the public system of education. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    classes correlate with themselves to a considerable degree, but not with the tests made in the laboratory.” In Germany, so eminent a psychologist as Kraepelin! came also to an identical verdict. “‘ At the end of these inquiries,” he writes, ““ we cannot hide from ourselves that the results secured have fallen far short of what we had been led to anticipate from collective experiments with the simplest “mental tests.’ ”’ The sanguine hopes of Galton and his immediate followers seemed, then, to have come to nothing; and the notion of mental testing fell into temporary disrepute?. VII.—APPLICATION OF CORRELATIONAL METHODS. 13. After these discouraging pronouncements, for several years little work of any moment was done with mental tests. Suddenly, however, interest was re-awakened ; a new impetus and a fresh turn were imparted to the whole inquiry by two of the most original and suggestive investigators in this field, Spearman in England, and Binet in France. 14. The Coefficient of Correlation. Following the suggestions and the practice of English statisticians like Galton and Karl Pearson, Spearman now proposed to apply the exact method of correlation to psychological data, much in the same way as it had already been applied to the physical data of biometry and anthropometry ; and, devising a short simple and in- telligible “‘ footrule ’”’ for calculating such coefficients, he did much to popularise the use of correlation among non- mathematical psychologists?. ) i Psych. Arbeiten: ili, p.. 324. 2 It should be added that for the measurement of simple and specific capacities, such as sensory discrimination, reaction-time, and the like, tests involving elaborate apparatus still remain in- dispensable. These more elementary capacities, however, are but remotely related to the work of the classroom; and most of the testing of this type is still carried out, not in schools upon children, but in psychological laboratories upon adult students. On the use and technique of such tests an excellent handbook is provided by Whipple’s Manual of Mental and Physical Tests. Standard methods are there described in full. Detailed results are brought together ; and complete references to the literature are appended for each test. S Amer Pik sychol.; Ns W904; pps 72isgg is Brita fe Psychol: II, 1906, pp. 89 sqgg. A coefficient of correlation is a fraction or percentage expressing the amount of agreement between two series of measurements: for detailed explanations and examples, see Appendix V.