Testing

“ The standards established under subparagraph (A) shall
include uniform criteria for acceptable performance under a
proficiency testing program, based on the available technology
and the clinical relevance of the laboratory examination or
other procedure subject to such program. The criteria shall be
established for all examinations and procedures and shall be
uniform for each examination and procedure. ”

“ It is in the determination of these universal standards and the preparation of tests, the results of which indicate the individual’s relative approximation to these standards, that the scientific training of the psychologist comes principally into play. Rough standards for testing the more obvious mental capacities might be set up by any intelligent person who would take the pains to collect the essential data. ”

“ By science is meant, as already stated, that knowledge which is the outcome of methods of observation, reflection, and testing which are deliberately adopted to secure a settled, assured subject matter. It involves an intelligent and persistent endeavor to revise current beliefs so as to weed out what is erroneous, to add to their accuracy, and, above all, to give them such shape that the dependencies of the various facts upon one another may be as obvious as possible. It is, like all knowledge, an outcome of activity bringing about certain changes in the environment. ”

“ An annual testing by the teachers, followed by medical inspection of the children found defective, would soon cause all existing defects to be corrected, and would lead to the detection of those which develop during school life. ”

“ The results of the tests showed a much narrower range than would be expected in a group varying in age from ten to twenty. Without any standardisation it is impossible to draw any more detailed conclusions. I shall, however, include a few comments about the peculiar responses which the girls made to particular tests, as I believe such comment is useful in evaluating intelligence testing among primitive peoples and also in estimating the possibilities of such testing. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The testing shall be conducted
on a quarterly basis, except where the Secretary determines for
technical and scientific reasons that a particular examination
or procedure may be tested less frequently (but not less often
than twice per year) . ”

“ It is therefore necessary to have prepared the reagents required for such testing, as every person, before he can become an expert blowpipe analyst, must be acquainted with the characteristic tests as applied in the wet way. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is almost possible to sum up the whole process of thinking as the occurrence of sug­ges­tions for the solution of difficulties and the testing out of those sug­ges­tions. The sug­ges­tions or sup­po­si­tions are tested by observation, memory, experiment. ”

“ We cannot take time to discuss how much of the differences between the various curves may be due to the nature of the tests themselves, the form of scoring the results, or the condition under which they were given, selection of subjects, etc. The conclusion is safe, however, that when groups of three or four tests of similar type show such marked differences 289as those for memory of digits and memory for related material we may expect similar differences in the rates of maturity of the corresponding processes. ”

“ It is our pride that medicine, from an art, and a pretty black one at that, originally, is becoming a science. And the most powerful factor in this development, its indispensable basis, in fact, has been the invention of instruments of precision—the microscope, the fever thermometer, the stethoscope, the ophthalmoscope, the test-tube, the culture medium, the triumphs of the bacteriologist and of the chemist. Any man who makes a final diagnosis in a serious case without resorting to some or all of these means is regarded—and justly—as careless and derelict in his duty to his patient. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If a patient could once have displayed before him in visible form the immense amount of knowledge, experience, and labor which has gone into the devising and goes into the performing of this test, he would be more content to leave the decision of such questions to his physician than he sometimes is, and would be more alive to its reality and importance. ”

“ In a laboratory organized upon this idea, every worker should be assigned to definite, positive duties, the accurate and careful performance of which would eventually be sure to advance exact knowledge. Here there is nothing speculative or doubtful. Here are certain things to be done, which can be done only by men of the most thorough training, equipped with the best appliances. In such a laboratory, chance would have but little place. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Examinations are suited in the first instance for the purpose for which they were originally designed in medieval universities—the test of technical and professional capacity; it has never been proposed to abolish qualifying examinations for doctors, pharmaceutical chemists, &c. ; the tests applied are (or should be) direct tests of capacity carried out under conditions as nearly as possible like those of actual practice. If a student can auscultate correctly, or make up a prescription, at an examination, he will in all probability be able to do so in other circumstances. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Constructions of ideas about possibilities of experience are often allowable enough in science, as mere hypotheses, or as assertions about what is probable. But the test is the concrete, present, immediate experience of this or that observer. What has been seen, felt, or otherwise empirically encountered by some body, is in so far real. ”

“ Before successful tests can be expected, one must not only be certain of a perfect knowledge of all the details of the method, but a thorough knowledge of their fundamental principles is most essential. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Having chosen certain promising tests for experiment, having proved the validity of these tests by checking up the relation of their results to the true abilities of a group of old employees or persons whose relative capacities are known perfectly, and having selected those tests whose results relate most directly to intellectual ability and least directly to one another, one may begin to employ the tests thus selected for the sorting and classification of new recruits or applicants. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The final proof of reliability in a test can come only by actual trial of that test upon men of various degrees of demonstrated ability in the trade or profession concerned. What follows is a statement of how to measure this correspondence between demonstrated degree of success and score in a test, or between the scores of the same persons in two or more different tests.
No measure of relationship between success in life and success in a test can be any more accurate than the original measures of success from which the calculation is made. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is true that his patients do not understand his methods, but they judge him by the test of results, which is the most practical test of the efficiency and value of his services, which may manifest an inborn skill of diagnosis or merely a mechanical rule of thumb application of book learning, to all cases alike without discrimination, and which are rewarded respectively by a large practice, and the semi-starvation of the unhappy practitioner who has mistaken his vocation. ”

“ Standardized tests have already become and will remain by far the most reliable single method for grading intelligence, but the results they furnish will always need to be interpreted in the light of supplementary information regarding the subject’s personal history, including medical record, accidents, play habits, industrial efficiency, social and moral traits, school success, home environment, etc. ”

“ Besides the application of scientific mental tests as already indicated, in business and industry and in education, by the employer or the teacher, there is another and important use to which standardized tests, based upon determined capacities of groups and individuals of known ability, may be put. This is the use of such tests by the individual upon himself for the purpose of determining his own mental capacity in a particular direction or of a particular kind as compared with the mental capacity of others. ”

“ In every department of science, when prosecuted far enough, these two great steps of investigation must succeed each other. The laws of phenomena must be known before we can speculate concerning causes; the causes must be inquired into when the phenomena have been 128 reduced to rule. In both these speculations the suppositions and conceptions which occur must be constantly tested by reference to observation and experiment. ”

“ To explain how these tests can be made, how science can be and is being substituted for guesswork in the selection of human beings for jobs and of jobs for human beings, just as science has displaced guesswork in the selection of material commodities, is the purpose of this book. ”

“ They are not only the recognized fire tests of Great Britain, but they rank as universal standard tests for the whole of the civilized world, and Americans, just as much as Danes, Germans or Austrians, pride themselves when some product of their country has passed the official procedure of a test by the committee. The reports of the tests, which state facts only without giving criticisms or recommendations, are much appreciated by all who have the control of public works or the specification of appliances. ”

“ 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. ”

“ First and most useful generally are general intelligence tests, which must usually be subdivided into a series of related tests. Then, for varying purposes, such as the examination of candidates for particular classes of employment requiring special ability or capacity, there may be applied speed tests, accuracy tests, perception tests, coördination tests, memory tests, mathematical tests, and a wide variety of others. ”

“ The tests which we are making are given for the advancement of science and for the information of the person tested. By scientific means we will be able to separate characteristics derived from heredity and environment and to treat each class separately. ”