Test

“ We must trust to nothing but facts: These are presented to us by Nature, and cannot deceive. We ought, in every instance, to submit our reasoning to the test of experiment, and never to search for truth but by the natural road of experiment and observation. ”

“ We are being trained to the facts of physical science, which we can test and test again, and we feel it a fall from this high level of proof when we turn our minds to the old records which elude such testing, and are even admitted on all hands to contain statements not to be relied on. ”

“ The one indispensable condition for such a test, however, is that the experimenter shall have full opportunity, coupled with sufficient authority, to insure a thorough and impartial trial. And this, owing to the almost universal prejudice in favor of the old, and to the suspicion of the new, is difficult to get. ”

“ These are tests which 46primarily measure the subject’s ability to perform certain specific acts under pre-determined conditions, the determination of capacity in excess of that actually demonstrated under test depending upon the facility and accuracy with which the subject responds to the conditions of these tests. Of course, every scientific mental test is based upon the performance of certain acts, since it is only through action of some sort, whether by speech, writing, or the performance of a manual operation, that any one is able to express his mental ability at any time. ”

“ In order to use the tests intelligently it is necessary to acquaint one’s self thoroughly with the purpose of each test, its correct procedure, and the psychological interpretation of different types of response. ”

“ The test may be made in any room that is reasonably free from distracting influences; the subject is seated with his back toward the experimenter, so that he cannot see the record; he is requested to respond to each stimulus word by one word, the first word that occurs to him other than the stimulus word itself, and on no account more than one word. If an untrained subject reacts by a sentence or phrase, a compound word, or a different grammatical form of the stimulus word, the reaction is left unrecorded, and the stimulus word is repeated at the close of the test. ”

“ Of no man or woman can it be said that he or she is infallible, and as every one who applies a psychological test is human, and so liable to error either in its application or the reading of its result, conclusions drawn from the results of any particular test should be accepted as accurate only when they have been checked by the results of other tests applied to the same subject, and substantial conformity of the results of one to those of the others has been obtained. ”

“ It is not pretended that the test is a miniature of the work of such calling, nor that it is a fair sample of such work, nor even that it involves precisely the same mental functions that come into play in such work. The test records and ability in the particular type of work show high positive correlation, which means that an individual who is good or medium or poor in the one is, as a mere matter of fact, also found to be good, medium or poor in the other. ”

“ With his desire to supplement the test person betrays a tendency to give the experimenter more than he wants, he even exerts the greatest efforts to seek further mental occurrences in order finally to discover something quite satisfactory. If we translate this elementary observation into the psychology of everyday life, it signifies that the test person has a tendency constantly to give to others more feeling than is required and expected. ”

“ Since an examination is, in effect, a form of psychological test, it is natural that psychologists should have attempted to introduce some of the technique of psychological testing into the work of examining students, in the interest of economy of the student's time as well as that of the examiner. The teacher prepares blanks which the student can quickly fill out if he knows the subject, not otherwise. ”

“ In order, however, to get at a really useful record of the mental capacity of an individual, we must apply a variety of tests and out of the sum total of the results of these tests we are able much more accurately to gauge the degree of possession of the qualities for which we are seeking than could possibly be done by any single test, no matter how skilfully constructed. Here again science confronts the popular human demand for a panacea. ”

“ In fact, the test with weights hardly taxes sensory discrimination at all when used with children of 5-year intelligence. Success depends, in the first place, on the ability to understand the instructions; and in the second place, on the power to hold the instructions in mind long enough to guide the process of making the comparison. The test presupposes, in elementary form, a power which is operative in all the higher independent processes of thought, the power to neglect the manifold distractions of irrelevant sensations and ideas and to drive direct toward a goal. ”

“ Within the confines of a title page of a test booklet only small examples can be presented, and therefore the instructions are for measuring one individual at a time. Any employer, teacher, or supervisor who plans to make use of these tests for non-English-speaking persons would do well to prepare the demonstration material in enlarged form in order to use it in giving the tests to groups of individuals at the same time. ”

“ This man gave me what he was pleased to term a “test breakfast,” for the purpose of diagnosing my case. Now, good friends, if you never had a “test breakfast” from one of these ultra-scientific men, [Pg 69] you are just as well off in blissful ignorance of it. Take my word for it, it is also calculated to put your good nature to the test. This doctor found out everything that I was eating and then told me to eat just the opposite.
A few weeks later I went to see another specialist of the same kind. ”

“ We bring the matter to the test or actual experiment. We make certain experiments, seriatim, upon each of the items that lie within the sentient sphere, and we note the effect which each experiment has upon that portion of the contents which is not meddled with. ”

“ The question is, therefore, to decide whether a given response contains as much and as good interpretation as we have a right to expect at the age level where the test has been placed. It is imperative for any one who would use the scale correctly to acquaint himself thoroughly with the procedure and standards described above. ”

“ The test is as to the creation of substance, or existences that can support attributes, modes, or accidents of their own, instead of being simply attributes, modes, or accidents of the one substance, and thus capable of acting from their own centre as proper second causes. ”

“ The ordinary and standardized school and university examinations, 28civil-service examinations, etc., which have long been the accepted test of the individual’s ability, do not, and do not purport to, measure anything more than this last item, that of acquired knowledge. ”

“ The test may be built up, for example, to measure ability to recognize and classify words, but it will also depend upon ability to read the directions, ability to attend closely to horizontal and vertical lines and upon many other correlated abilities. Any test may measure primarily a particular mental dimension or ability but it is quite certain that the resulting score will be influenced by numberless other factors than the one that the examiner is most interested in measuring. ”

“ The proof of a test or of any method of prognostication lies in the degree to which it actually arranges people in the order of their relative efficiency in the tasks for which one seeks to foretell success.
A mere glance at a record such as that shown below for twenty-eight sixth-grade pupils would show that there was a real relationship between the scholarship marks, the teacher’s estimate of intelligence, and the results of educational measurements taken by an outsider. ”

“ It must be remembered that not once was there applied to him the test which is now recognized as absolutely indispensable in the investigation of mediums [Pg 164] who, like Home, are specialists in the production of "physical" phenomena. This test is the demand that the phenomena in question be produced under conditions doing away with the necessity for constant observation of the medium himself. ”

“ But having determined just what qualities and abilities it is desired to measure, we must set up a standard of measurement by which to compare the indicated ability of each individual examined, or we shall have nothing as a result of our test but a mass of information, of the significance of which we cannot possibly be aware. ”

“ Critics of testing contend it distracts from learning. They talk about ‘‘teaching to the test.’’ But let us put that logic to the test. If you test a child on basic math and reading skills and you are ‘‘teaching to the test,’’ you are teaching math and reading, and that is the whole idea. ”

“ Test′-tube, a cylinder of thin glass closed at one end, used in testing liquids.—n.pl. Test′-types, letters or words in type of different sizes for testing the sight.—Test Acts, acts meant to secure that none but rightly affected persons and members of the established religion shall hold office—especially those of 1673 and 1685. ”

“ If the test results are to be used by any other person than the examiner, this is absolutely essential. Any other standard of completeness opens the door to carelessness and inaccuracy. In nearly all the tests, except that of naming sixty words, the examiner will find it possible by the liberal use of abbreviations to record practically the entire response verbatim. ”

“ The tests so far described, because they have to be given to each subject individually, require a great deal of time from the trained examiner, and tests are also needed which can be given to a whole group of people at once. For persons who can read printed directions, a group test can easily be conducted, though much preliminary labor is necessary in selecting and standardizing the questions used. ”

“ When a teacher suspects that bad behavior grows out of poor hearing, poor sight, adenoids, subnormal mentality, malnutrition, 24nervous excitement, or any other physical cause, he should apply a test at once and find out the truth. Tests, simple enough to be used by any intelligent adult, have been devised for all defects liable to be found in schools. ”

“ There is one popular objection which is always made against this test, or indeed against any proper test, viz., that the examination is not made under the same conditions which absolutely exist, nor with the very lights which the candidates have to distinguish from one another—that is, the red and green lights. Let me beg of you to remark, that as a mere matter of guessing, the chances are equal that a man would name the light shown correctly. ”

“ It is safe to say that the errors which are daily committed in biological work have their cause in some infraction of this golden rule. In physical science the obligation to follow the comparative method is much less felt. In most cases the witness test [3] is useless. In physiology the witness test is indispensable. ”

“ An experiment belongs under what we called "general psychology", and a test under "differential psychology", since the first outcome of a test is to show how the individual differs from others in a certain respect. ”

“ A test of this sort measuring general vocabulary will be very useful to employers in the selection of stenographers and other clerical workers. In the public schoolroom teachers will find it very helpful in the classification of new pupils coming to their room for the first time or in the comparison of pupils who have been observed for a long period. The disadvantage of the test is that it must be given to one individual at a time. ”

“ It is extremely difficult to formulate mental tests so that they will equally well measure differences at each degree of ability. This objection should not hold, however, if the scoring were in units of time for the same task, as with the form board test. The essential characteristics of a test in order that it may indicate the form of a distribution is that the units of scoring shall be objectively equal under some reasonable interpretation and that they shall be fine enough to discriminate ability at each position on the scale. ”

“ One who has not had a thorough training in the methods of mental testing cannot appreciate how numerous are the opportunities for the unconscious transformation of a test. Many of these are pointed out in the description of the individual tests, but it would be folly to undertake to warn the experimenter against every possible error of this kind. ”

“ The same individuals must be given both tests. (2) The number of individuals tested must be as great as 15 or 20, preferably more. (3) The individuals should be a fair sample of the population in regard to the abilities tested; they should not be so selected as to represent only a small part of the total range of ability. (4) The tests should be thorough enough to determine each individual's rank in each test, with a high degree of certainty. Sloppy testing gives a correlation nearer zero than it should be, because it "pies" the true orders to some extent. ”

“ In tests involving tons of material the equipment involves the use of machines. Accuracy in degree of control and in results will vary materially with the size of the test. As the size of the test increases, certain factors will vary in a beneficial manner, while others will vary in a detrimental manner, so it is a question for each investigator to decide, after taking all factors into consideration, as to the size of test which will give the most satisfactory results. ”