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1 The Policy Context
Pages 17-28

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From page 17...
... As part of the larger public discussion, the quality of the American work force has come under increasing scrutiny. Numerous articles and reports have described the decline in American public education and the failure of contemporary schools to prepare pupils to enter the labor market.
From page 18...
... This proposition is based on a number of assumptions: First, that there is a wide range of potential job performance in the people likely to be candidates for a particular type of job; Second, that ability tests predict future job performance with a useful degree of accuracy; Third, that higher scorers on the test are better performers in the long term (that is, if everyone could be trained to proficiency in a short period of time, the advantages of selecting high-ability workers would be fleeting)
From page 19...
... In the mid-1970s, a number of analysts, preeminent among them Frank Schmidt and John Hunter, began to challenge this theory of situational specificity, arguing that the observed differences in a given test s validity from one setting to another were not real, but rather were artificial differences introduced by sampling error, unreliability in the criterion measures, and other weaknesses of the individual validity studies. The application of meta-analytic techniques for combining data from large numbers of studies, statistical techniques that had proved useful in many other scientific areas, led Hunter and Schmidt to conclude both that the results of individual validity studies substantially understate the predictive power of cognitive tests and that the validity of such tests can be generalized to new situations, even to new jobs.
From page 20...
... The resulting percentile scores reflect an applicant's standing with reference to his or her own racial or ethnic group, thus effectively erasing average group differences in test scores. ~ black applicant with a percentile- score of 50 has the same ranking for referral as a white candidate with a percentile score of 50j although their raw test scores (percentage correct)
From page 21...
... and the promotion of federal equal employment opportunity and affirmative action goals. Without some sort of compensatory scoring system, in the agency's view, referral of candidates on the basis of GATB test scores from the top down would reduce the employment opportunities of minority-group job candidates, thwarting the governmental interest in bringing minority workers into the economic mainstream and creating possible legal problems for both the Employment Service and the employers it serves.
From page 22...
... OTHER POLICY ISSUES Although the immediate reason for this study stems from the divergent views of two federal agencies about the legality of score adjustments, there are more general questions that should also receive careful policy review, questions about the nature of cognitive tests and about the wisdom of allowing any one procedure to dominate federal and state efforts to promote economic well-being by bringing suitable workers and jobs together. Validity Generalization and the Reemergence of g Development of the theory of validity generalization has coincided with, indeed encouraged, a revival of interest in the concept of g, or general intelligence.
From page 23...
... Thorndike was not alone among the early testing enthusiasts, either in his grand expectations for mental measurement, in his readiness to measure morality, progress, and man's mastery of himself, or in his facile assumptions about the congruence of intellect and high moral character. In hindsight it is clear that many of the advocates of early testing allowed their scientific judgment to be influenced by contemporary racial and ethnic biases and by unexamined assumptions about the proper social order.
From page 24...
... Nevertheless, by transforming the intelligence scale into a test that could be administered to groups of people, and by using it to assess the intellectual skills of normal adults, the Army testing project legitimized the use of standardized, groupadministered tests as a tool for making selection and placement decisions about individuals in mass society. Through the diligent promotion by Yerkes and others who had been associated with the Army testing project, the myth was established in the postwar period that it had been a great practical success (Kevles, 1968; Reed, 1987~.
From page 25...
... Critics of Intelligence Testing The claims made for the Army Alpha and the hereditarian interpretation of test results did not go entirely unchallenged. Walter Lippmann published a trenchant series of articles in the The New Republic in 1922-1923, in which he mocked Yerkes' conclusion from the Army data that the average mental age of Americans is about 14.
From page 26...
... emphasize the contingent nature of what we call intelligence and the complex interplay of heredity and environment at all stages of human development. But in common usage such refinements can easily be lost, and there is very real danger that the renewed popularity of g and its promotion along with validity generalization could become a tool of racial and ethnic prejudice, generating feelings of superiority in some groups and inferiority in others.
From page 27...
... If the VG-GATB Referral System is found legally defensible, it is not unreasonable to anticipate that the GATB could come to dominate entry to many kinds of jobs. Many employers would be drawn to use the Employment Service as a way of reducing their legal vulnerability to equal employment opportunity suits; some would also be attracted by the savings resulting from shifting the costs of testing and test validation to the government (although small companies can afford neither in any case)
From page 28...
... In the remainder of this report, we evaluate the claims made for the General Aptitude Test Battery, for validity generalization, and for the economic benefits of employment testing. We assess the likely impact of widespread implementation of the VG-GATB Referral System with and without score adjustments.


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