ANALYSIS OF THE WORKER
plishment in the vocation; it is made with a group of workers
for observation who are well chosen with regard to this con-
ception of success; and it is made to serve as a basis for
the construction of scientific examinations rather than for
the immediate use of the employment office.
A warning is here in place. The list of essential abilities
which the investigator assembles is a tentative one, for the
purpose of suggesting lines of approach in the construction
of examinations. He cannot state dogmatically that the list
is correct, nor can he assert that each examination he later
constructs will yield accurate measures of these particular
abilities. If he knew all this there would be no neces-
sity for carrying through the rest of the investigation. Un-
fortunately, such omniscience is denied to most men. The
scientific investigator must patiently seek examinations
whose records bear such a close statistical relationship to
success in the vocation that they may be used in the em-
ployment office in selecting applicants with assurance that
future vocational success is closely predicted. The investi-
gator cannot choose these examinations casually. Such a
procedure he would find extremely wasteful. He must have
guides to follow. Consequently he does not decide on the
examinations to be tried until he has analyzed the workers
on the job and assembled a list of points in which he has
reason to think the good workers differ from the poor ones.
This list he uses as suggestive material in constructing
examinations. The validation of the examinations as selec-
tive instruments is ultimately accomplished by comparing
their results with the criterion of vocational accomplish-
ment, not with the list of abilities.
The process of analyzing the worker is similar to that of
analyzing the job, but the investigator focusses his atten-
tion on the worker rather than on the work. He selects for
observation those workers who are later to be examined by
means of the tests or other measuring devices he develops.
To give an outline which will fit all vocations is as im-
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