SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—L. A57 
(6) Prof. P. Sanprrorp, Messrs. Brennanpd and Houmes.—The 
Use of Partial Coefficients of Correlation in Educational 
Research. 
(a) Dr. C. Burr. 
I. Psychological tests for use in schools may be broadly classified as 
follows :— 
(A) Tests of Inborn Intellectual Capacity.—(1) Tests of general intelligence. 
(2) Tests of special aptitudes. 
(B) Zests of Acquired Attainments.—(1) Tests of educational attainments. 
(2) Tests of vocational attainments. 
Tests of the foregoing types may be cross-classified according to procedure, 
as (a) written group tests, (¥) individual oral tests, (c) individual performance 
tests. 
II. Such tests may be used at various stages in the child’s school career :— 
1. Tests for Departmental Promotion.—In England most children are pro- 
moted from the Infants’ Department to the Senior Department at the age of 
seven or eight. This is a neglected but crucial stage in the elementary-school 
child’s life. His subsequent success in the scholarship examination may depend 
upon it. At this point the most valuable tests are individual and oral tests 
of general intelligence, such as the Binet-Simon Scale. 
2. Tests for Class Promotion.—Within one and the same department pro- 
motion from class to class is likely to depend more upon attainment than upon 
capacity. Tests of acquired educational attainments are here, therefore, most 
serviceable to the teacher. Above Standard II. they may be administered by 
the group procedure. 
3. Tests for Transference to Central Schools and for Scholarships to Secondary 
Schools.—Such transferences are generally arranged after a scholarship examina- 
tion in educational attainments, such as arithmetic and English. To supplement 
examinations of the traditional type, however, group tests of general intelligence 
have of late been widely used in Great Britain. 
4, Tests for Entrance to Trade Schoois.—Here an over-emphasis upon 
attainments in English and arithmetic is apt to give a misleading result. 
Intelligence tests, particularly those of a performance type, would be of greater 
value. Tests for special aptitudes and for vocational attainments may be used 
for supplementary purposes. 
(b) Prof. P. Sanprrorp. 
- Since Yule’s determination of a general formula for the calculation of partial 
coefficients of correlation, comparatively little use has been made of it in 
educational research. Economists have used the method of partial correlations 
fairly freely in such studies as the prediction of crops and in the elucidation of 
the causal factors of pauperism. In recent years educators and psychologists 
have been trying out the method, and the results achieved by Gates, Burt, 
Prescott, Reavis, Franzen, and others have been most encouraging. 
Partial coefficients of correlation enable the experimenter to find the inde- 
pendent contribution of each of several variables to a given result. In researches 
at the Ontario College of Education the scores made by pupils in specially 
prepared standard tests for High School Physiography and Physics were due 
not only to their knowledge of science, but also to such factors as reading ability, 
— intelligence, age, and the like. By taking age into account and by use of tests 
_ for reading and for intelligence, followed by the calculation of partial coefficients 
of correlation, the experimenters were able to free the results from the influence 
_ of age, intelligence, and reading ability, leaving those mainly due to the know- 
waae of science. The method employed could be extended usefully in other 
fields. 
9. Mr. C. M. Sruart.—Modern Developments in Science Teaching. 
1. Science teaching up to about 1890, with special reference to the divorce 
_ between practical and theoretical teaching. 
