History of Army Alpha Test

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History of Psychological Assessment: Army Alpha Test Initially, there were two tests that were used to evaluate military recruits. Those tests were the Army Alpha and Beta Test. The Beta test was more focused on measuring native intellect and the testing of non-English speaking recruits. The focus of this paper is on the Army Alpha test; it’s historical roots and how the test has affected the development of psychological testing in the 21st century. In 1917, the need for psychological testing arose when the United States entered into World War I. Psychologist Robert Yerkes and his committee of psychologists designed the Army Alpha and Beta tests that lay the groundwork for future standardized tests (Sass, 2005). The committee of psychologists led by Yerkes, included Thorndike, Thurstone, and Otis. The committee also included Lewis Terman, the developer of the Stanford-Binet IQ test. Their goal was to create a method could help the war efforts in areas of selection, categorization and assignment decisions for troops. The test was designed so that it would be able to assess a large number of people at one time. “Consisting of approximately 212 questions, The Alpha test could be answered by checking or underlining which permitted the tests to be scored using stencils. The test could be administered to 200 soldiers in less than one hour (Giordano, 2005).” The Army Alpha was a group-administered test that measured verbal ability, numerical ability, ability to follow directions, and knowledge of information. The Army Beta was a non-verbal counterpart to the Army Alpha. It was used to evaluate the aptitude of illiterate, unschooled, or non-English speaking draftees and volunteers. Giordano also states that “pantomime and demonstrations were also used to deliver the test which took 60 minutes to complete and was designed for groups of 60 soldiers or less (Giordano,

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