College student personnel problems. I. Individual mental testing at the college-adult level

Abstract

The work has been in progress at the University of Pennsylvania; some of the tests used are three Ausfrage tests, distribution of attention, memory span for digits, syllables and ideas, difference and likeness, definitions, opposites, language ability, memory, arithmetic achievement; Downey test, Pressey X-O test, Brotemarkle test for ideational content of moral concepts; Princeton and International intelligence tests; combined social rating; and college grade. The intercorrelations between the groups of these are all low. Abilities in order of their complexity are plotted against percentiles, and the shapes of the resulting curves are differentiated into types; the correlations of the types with their component values fall in the middle ranges (.26 to .69); psychology grades correlate with the types .54 and with the various test groups .18 to .38. This procedure is said to have been of vital importance in the solution of case problems; five case histories are given. An abbreviated percentile distribution of several of the tests used is presented, with references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)