EMPLOYMENT PSYCHOLOGY
The Scovill Manufacturing Company of Waterbury, Con-
necticut, adopted such a policy in standardizing and evaluat-
ing its general mental alertness test for factory operatives,
many of whom cannot read or write English. The test is
given to all new employees at time of hiring. In January,
1926, this investigation had been under way for more than
two years, and sufficient data had been accumulated to yield
significant critical scores in scarcely a fifth of the depart-
ments being studied. In only three of these were the test
standards as yet being actually used in employment of new
workers, namely, apprentice toolmakers, apprentice electri-
cians, and operatives in one department. The results of the
actual use of the test in these groups were sufficiently clear-
cut, and the management already felt well repaid for the in-
vestment made in developing and evaluating the tests. Not
only were those employees who were selected on the new
basis proving to be superior; the firm was getting a larger
number and a higher type of applicants for the jobs where
it was becoming known that selection rested on the appli-
cant’s performance rather than on the personal estimate or
favor of a foreman. Six months later, the investigation had
progressed to the stage where sufficient data had been se-
cured in more than 60 occupations, and standards for selec-
tion and placement in these occupations had been deter-
mined for use of the employment department. Such are the
objectives which a farsighted examiner keeps before him.
We may now assume that the investigator has gathered all
his data. He has chosen a group of men who represent vari-
ous degrees of success in the vocation in question. He has
obtained a variety of measurements and estimates of their
abilities by specially constructed tests, questionnaires, and
rating scales. The following chapter deals with the next
step, the comparison of these measurements with the criter-
ion of vocational success for the purpose of determining
which measuring instruments differentiate sufficiently be-
tween degrees of vocational accomplishment to justify their
use in employment.
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