3ia REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 



determine the norms for this test with various age groups and for different 

 types of subject. 



The need for exploring other aspects of manual skill, as expressed in 

 many industrial operations which are not of the assembling type, has also 

 been stressed in previous reports of this committee. 



B. On the Nature and Measurement o f Mechanical Aptitude. 



Alongside the above described work on routine assembling went an 

 extensive investigation into the factors involved in mechanical assembling. 

 The mechanical factor found in these operations was demonstrated to be 

 the same as that previously discovered by Dr. Cox in his original mechanical 

 aptitude tests. There were, in addition, various specific factors, but the 

 manual activities involved in these operations were found to have little in 

 common with the manual group-factor in the routine operations. 



In view of the range and importance of the mechanical factor it was 

 decided to determine norms for the mechanical aptitude tests for various 

 age groups. 



It was also decided to explore further aspects of mechanical ability by 

 (i) devising tests suitable for younger children, and (ii) investigating the 

 nature of the factors in other kinds of mechanical work. 



II. Work carried out during the Current Year. 

 A. The Further Analysis and Development of Manual Tests. 



i . Application of Test in a Factory. — The manual tests referred to above 

 were administered as individual tests, the score being the time taken to do a 

 given quantity of work. The eye-board test has now been modified to 

 permit of its use as a group test, the score being the number of eyes threaded 

 in a given time. In this form it was given to 66 factory workers engaged 

 in various kinds of assembly work. At the same time the testees were 

 assessed for ability at (a) fine assembling work, and (b) coarse assembling 

 work, by a foreman well acquainted with their work. The correlation be- 

 tween the test and each of these assessments indicated a fairly close corre- 

 spondence between the. test and coarse assembling (0-75) and a much lower 

 correlation with fine assembling (o ■ 30). A careful inquiry was subsequently 

 made into the nature of the operations which had been classified as ' coarse ' 

 and ' fine ' ; whence it transpired that the ' coarse ' was mainly concerned 

 with fitting or screwing pieces together, or inserting screws into holes, 

 whereas the ' fine ' assembling work consisted of winding various coils of 

 wire. It was thus seen that this test selects well for those kinds of operations 

 (assembling the electric lamp holder) upon which it was based, but that 

 further tests are needed where operations of the coil-winding type are 

 concerned. 



The need for further research into other kinds of manual work is thus 

 again exemplified in the results of this investigation, for this distinction 

 between ' fine ' and ' coarse ' assembling is evidently a real one. The latter, 

 under the name of routine assembling, has already received much attention 

 in our previous reports, whereas the former calls for closer study than it has 

 hitherto received. 



The experiment suggested in our last report, in which it was proposed 

 to compare ability at routine assembling operations with ability at tests 

 involving larger muscular movements, was begun at a Central School at 

 Edmonton. Owing to lack of financial support, however, this work has been 

 considerably delayed. It is hoped to continue the experiment next year. 



