3° 
EMPLOYMENT PSYCHOLOGY 
touched was then read on a scale under the lower bar. 
Each subject was given fifteen trials and the last ten were 
averaged and constituted the subject’s record for this 
test. 
These eight tests were given to seventy-three girls. 
Fifty-two were inspectors, and twenty-one were gaugers. 
The work of gauging will be described later. It was im 
possible to test a larger number of girls because the ex 
periment came at a time when the work of shell inspection 
was rapidly slowing up and a majority of the girls were 
being laid oflF or transferred to other jobs. After the tests 
had been given came the process of computing the results. 
In figuring up these results, the very first step was to 
obtain the ranking of the girls as shown by their daily 
work. Without such a ranking of the comparative abil 
ities of the inspectors, it would be impossible to discover 
whether those who had done well in the tests were good 
workers and the reverse. The experimenter had, while 
conducting the tests, also kept a record of the number of 
pounds of shells inspected by each girl on the day that 
she was tested. However, this record was not deemed 
extensive enough to afford a reliable criterion of a girl’s 
ability. To be sure, if a girl’s work on the day that she 
was taking the tests was unusually high, that fact might 
show up in an unusually good performance in the tests, 
and thus serve to maintain the correspondence between 
the two. However, the object of the tests was such as to 
make an immediate correspondence a distinctly minor 
feature. It was rather to discover whether any corre 
spondence existed between the performance in certain 
tests given for the first time and occupying only a few 
minutes and the work of a girl over an extended period 
of weeks and even months. Unless such a correspondence