The Measurement of Intelligence

Answers

• Q12JUDGMENT

  Can numerical measures adequately determine a person's fitness for a position of responsibility?

  Yes. tests determine fitness. Terman anticipates occupational intelligence-quotient thresholds and recommends psychologists to screen applicants, while denying that available tests can unerringly select a precise occupation for each person.

  Summary disputed by reviewer: Description reconciled with the current quotation by Codex, 28 Oct 2026; historical interpretation and existing draft category remain unvalidated.

  INTELLIGENCE TESTS FOR VOCATIONAL FITNESS. The time is probably not far distant when intelligence tests will become a recognized and widely used instrument for determining vocational fitness. Of course, it is not claimed that tests are available which will tell us unerringly exactly what one of a thousand or more occupations a given individual is best fitted to pursue. But when thousands of children who have been tested by the Binet scale have been followed out into the industrial world, and their success in various occupations noted, we shall know fairly definitely the vocational significance of any given degree of mental inferiority or superiority. Researches of this kind will ultimately determine the minimum "intelligence quotient" necessary for success in each leading occupation. Industrial concerns doubtless suffer enormous losses from the employment of persons whose mental ability is not equal to the tasks they are expected to perform. The present methods of trying out new employees, transferring them to simpler and simpler jobs as their inefficiency becomes apparent, is wasteful and to a great extent unnecessary. A cheaper and more satisfactory method would be to employ a psychologist to examine applicants for positions and to weed out the unfit. Any business employing as many as five hundred or a thousand workers, as, for example, a large department store, could save in this way several times the salary of a well-trained psychologist.

  Houghton Mifflin 1916; Gutenberg #20662.