TESTING BOYS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 72, 7 January 1936, Page 8

TESTING BOYS.

FITNESS FOR CAREERS. Boys at an English public school are, for the first time, being psychologically tested to help them in choosing careers. The first "careers laboratory" has been opened at Dulwich College, London. The boys submit voluntarily to tests, calculated to reveal ability, personality, and character, which had been evolved by the National Institute of Industrial Psychology. Thus it is hoped that industrial and professional "misfits" may be" avoided.

Boys are given lamp-holders, spring clothes pegs, bicycle wheels and door locks in pieces which they had to put together. The time taken is important. Would-be dentists and doctors undergo a steadiness-of-hand tost. Each boy is given a tapering steel peg to insert into six holes varying in size, in a metal plate. If he touches the sides an electric bulb flashes. Cube tests are used to indicate practical intelligence. Nine cubes are packed into a square and coloured only on the outside. These are jumbled up and the boy then has to put them together in the' shortest possible time. In another test eight cubes are packed in two storeys and painted on the inside. This assembly process is more difficult. Perseverance is assessed by means of two balls of different size which have to be slipped into a rim through holes the diameter of the balls. The balls are gathered at the end of the run and reinserted until the boy grows tired or shows impatience.

Other tests arc for suggestibility, temperament in success and failure, the ability to switch the mind from subject to subject, memory, verbal expression, showmanship, and alertness.