History Of Psychological Testing

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History of Psychological Assessment The Army and Beta Tests Jamie Tyler University of Phoenix Alyssa Oland Psych/525 July 25, 2011 History of Psychological Assessment the Army and Beta Tests An intelligence test is a form of psychological assessment that is devised for measuring mental characteristics. Intelligence tests are an example of psychometric test and can be given for various reasons which included employment and educational reasons. Intelligence tests can be given by many various entities which can include schools, employers and the military. The military use intelligence for their recruits known as the Army Alpha and Beta tests. During World War I or WWI, “Robert Yerkes a psychologists who believed that intelligence was a fixed quantity set out to develop and carry out one of the largest test of intelligence in history”(Gould, 1982). In 1917 Yerkes developed the Army Alpha and Beta tests which is, the first aptitude test given by the military, in order to screen the large amount of army recruits (Cherry, 2011). The Army Alpha and Beta tests was used by commanders to have some measure of the ability of their personnel. The first portion of the test the Alpha test was administered to a group and was used to measure verbal and numerical ability, the ability to follow directions and knowledge of information. The Alpha test consisted of eight parts which included analogies and unscrambling sentences. The counter part of the Alpha test was the Beta test and was given to the draftees and volunteers that were illiterate, uneducated or non English speaking. The Army Beta test was a pictorial test that consisted of seven portions which included the completion of a maze and a picture completion portion. The Army Alpha and Army Beta tests took approximately one hour to complete and “over the course World War I, some 1.5 million recruits were given
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