EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 



are opening important fields of research and will in time 

 give a much more scientific basis for education than we 

 now have. 



The most successful tests, other than those designed to 

 measure general intelligence, are the standardized tests of 

 achievement in the school subjects. These are in part 

 replacing the old-fashioned school examinations which 

 were so notoriously unreliable and subjective. The new- 

 type examinations (the standardized test) call for a far 

 larger and fairer sampling of the child's knowledge and 

 yield scores which are not influenced by the bias of the 

 examiner. When they are used in connection with intel- 

 ligence tests, the promotion and classification of pupils 

 is effectively removed from the realm of guesswork. 



The tests of musical ability help to identify, even in 

 the lower school grades, the children who have musical 

 promise. In the past, millions of dollars have been expended 

 annually on the musical education of children who were 

 almost wholly lacking in musical talent, while countless 

 others of superior natural talent remained undiscovered. 

 The same is true with respect to artistic talent, mechanical 

 aptitude, and other types of special ability. The rapid 

 progress which is being made in psychological testing 

 warrants the belief that in the not very distant future the 

 vast majority of school children will be measured for several 

 kinas of special ability and special defects as well as for 

 general intelligence and for previous scholastic achieve- 

 ment. 



The personality tests will doubtless have less effect on 

 ordinary classroom procedures, but their ultimate influence 

 upon child training in the broader sense is likely to be 

 profound. It is already apparent that the early treatment 

 of children by parents is capable of warping their personal- 

 ity traits for life in definitely measurable ways. Lack of 

 opportunity for self-expression breeds inferiority complexes 



[113] 



