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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 5, Issue 4 (August 1, 1930)

The Essential Test in Selection

The Essential Test in Selection.

The rough attempts that the employer sets can be refined, pruned and altered, until they are definitely a “test” within the scientific connotation of the term. Moreover, such set tests, by reason of their being worked over, can be standardised so that a similar set can be used for a tremendous number of children. It becomes an efficient test which will give not only trustworthy and comparable technique, but also standards— or as they are technically termed “norms,” measures, that is, of superior, average or inferior performances. An illustration of this principle is that practised in some postal districts for the employment of men. A “sample” test of the work to be performed is given.

A postman may be called upon to read quickly and accurately a series of badly addressed envelopes, a sorter to distribute in piles, according to area numbers, a large pile of “dummies.” These may be checked over for error. The telegraphist may be tried out at a key which will check out errors, or at a receiving set working to a given number of words perminute. But it is obvious that these “tests” may be passed as the result of training, but in themselves are not indicative of aptitudes or capacities. The real result comes when there is found some third result, a common factor it might be termed, which will show clearly the capacity of the individual in specified directions to meet the problems which the job presents. This is, correctly speaking, the real germ of the whole system of selection.