34

EMPLOYMENT  PSYCHOLOGY

Because  of  the  nature  of  the  eye  test,  only  individual
correspondences  could  be  shown.  Some  of  these  will  be
mentioned  later.  It  was  plainly  evident,  however,  that
an  inspector  needed  two  very  good  eyes  in  order  to  succeed
at  this  work.
From  the  above  figures,  it  can  be  seen  that  three  tests
show  a  correlation  which  is  really  significant.  Two  of
these  show  a  correlation  of  over  .60  which  is  very  good,
and  one  shows  a  correlation  of  .56  which  is  also  quite  good.
The  significance  of  these  correlations  will  be  more  apparent ­
  if  we  compare  them  with  those  brought  out  by
another  section  of  this  experiment.  Besides  giving  the
tests  to  girls  engaged  in  visual  inspection,  the  same  tests
were  given  to  twenty-one  girls  engaged  in  gauging  the
head-thickness  of  shells.  This  work  does  not  require  the
use  of  the  eyes.  The  operator  simply  picks  up  a  handful
of  shells  and,  with  or  without  looking,  tries  the  head  of
each  shell  on  a  gauge.  The  gauge  is  a  piece  of  steel  with
two  notches  or  openings.  The  shells  which  are  too  small
pass  through  the  first  opening  and  fall  into  a  box  of  rejects ­
  below.  Those  that  do  not  pass  through  are  tried  on
the  second  opening  and,  if  they  pass  through,  they  are  of
the  right  size.  If  they  fail  to  pass  through,  they  are  too
large  and  are  thrown  aside.  The  operator  sits  in  front  of
her  gauge  which  is  rigidly  fixed,  and  tries  each  shell  at
one  opening  and  then  at  another,  just  as  rapidly  as  she
can  move  her  hands  up  and  down.  It  will  readily  be  seen
that  this  work  requires  qualities  quite  different  from  those
required  by  the  girls  engaged  in  the  work  of  inspecting.
This  difference  was  admirably  brought  out  by  the  tests.
The  tests  showed,  in  this  instance,  an  entirely  different
set  of  correlations.  The  correlations  found  in  both  instances ­
  are  given  below.