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EMPLOYMENT  PSYCHOLOGY

is  practiced  and  where  the  need  for  trained  men  is  imperative, ­
  it  is  all  the  more  urgent  that  those  to  whom  this
training  is  given  should  be  men  who  are  able  to  assimilate ­
  it.
The  experiment  upon  which  this  chapter  is  based  was
performed  in  a  shop  designed  to  give  a  short  course  of
intensive  training  to  prospective  machinists  and  machinetool
  specialists.  Three  groups  of  men  comprising  thirtyfive
  in  all  were  tested.  Five  tests  were  given  and  three  of
these  showed  a  consistent  correlation  with  the  rank  of
those  tested.  These  three  tests  were  the  Stenquist  mechanical ­
  assembling  test  (see  Chapter  VII),  the  cube
test,  and  a  form-board  test  based  on  test  number  51  but
much  longer  and  more  involved.  The  cube  test  consists
of  a  three-inch  cube,  painted  green  on  the  outside.  The
cube  is  cut  into  twenty-seven  one-inch  cubes.  The  large
cube  is  placed  before  the  subject  and  he  is  told  that  it  will
be  demolished  into  twenty-seven  small  cubes  and  that  he
must  restore  them  so  that  the  large  cube  looks  exactly  as
it  did  before,  viz.,  green  on  all  sides  with  no  wood  color
exposed.  Each  subject  is  allowed  to  do  this  twice.  The
more  complex  form-board  test  really  consists  of  two
form  boards.  On  one  board,  the  cut-outs  are  promiscuously ­
  arranged,  on  the  other  they  are  arranged  in  a  definite
order;  but  the  same  cut-outs  are  used  for  both  boards,
the  task  being  to  place  them  from  one  board  into  the  other.
Incidentally,  this  solves  the  problem  of  always  presenting
the  cut-outs  to  each  subject  in  exactly  the  same  position.
These  tests  were  given  first  to  the  twelve  men  composing
the  day  shift.  The  members  of  this  shift  with  one  exception ­
  had  been  working  from  three  to  five  weeks.  All
of  them  had  begun  as  green  hands.  After  the  tests  had
been  given,  the  chief  instructor  and  foreman  of  the  shop