Date of Award:

5-1943

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

School of Teacher Education and Leadership

Department name when degree awarded

Education

Committee Chair(s)

Arden N. Frandsen

Committee

Arden N. Frandsen

Abstract

Demands for increased industrial and educational efficiency in modern times have necessitated more careful selection and guidance of personnel in preparation for and entrance into industrial activities. As a means to this end, there are being developed numerous tests designed to measure abilities and to aid in prediction of potential successes in various fields. This problem is intensified in the preparation of workers in war industries.

Early in World War II it became very apparent that air power would be a primary determinant in the outcome of the war. The United States, in order to achieve air superiority, inaugurated an immense program of expansion in aircraft industry. A portion of this expansion consisted of the construction and maintenance of a vast network of air depots and their subsidiaries for the repair and servicing of aircraft.

This expansion created a growing need for skilled aircraft mechanics, which need could be fulfilled only through an extensive training program specific to the task. The United States Offices of Education, operating through the school system, sponsored a National Defense Training Program. Under this program, workers are trained for skilled and semi-skilled services needed in the principal defense industries.

Beginning in June 1941, the Utah program of training was devoted largely to the training of mechanics to work in civilian status for the Army Air Corps at the Ogden Air Depot or at other air depots as needs required. Men and women, having passed entrance examinations, were employed through the Civil Service Commission at a salary of nine hundred dollars per year to learn any of the aircraft trades. After completion of the training, they were eligible for reclassification to mechanic helpers, from which level they might be advanced as improvement was shown.

That portion of the total training program which provided incentive and data for the present study was carried on at the Utah State Agricultural College. Here students were trained in most of the eleven crafts into which the broader field of aircraft skills was subdivided.

The Civil Service Examinations, taken by all Mechanic Learner candidates, were designed for the purpose of eliminating those apparently least capable of achieving success. Additional methods were necessary to place learners in those subdivisions of the training program for which they were best adapted. A personnel system involving extensive use of tests, interviews, and personal records was already in operation in Utah defense schools when this study was undertaken. This testing program had proved valuable for the elimination of very slow learner, a process which was necessary in order to make the limited training facilities available for learners with greater potentialities for success. Economy and practicability suggested the extension of existing personnel procedures to the additional function of selecting the individuals for training in each of the specific skills offered in the training program.

Test validity is relatively specific. The validity of any test for a specific purpose must be determined experimentally or by correlation with tests whose validity have been previously established. Since no battery of tests had been validated for prediction of achievement in the Mechanic Learner program, it was necessary to determine this validity for a selected group of tests designed to predict achievement in related fields. The central problem of this study is to check the validity of certain tests as predictors of the achievement of Mechanic Learner trainees as determined by ratings of instructors.

Well established procedures in test validation are utilized. They consist essentially of three principal steps:

  1. The definition of criteria of validity, or the achievements to be predicted;
  2. The description of the instrument to be validated;
  3. Correlation of measures of achievement with scores on the tests to be validated.

Subsequent sections of the study are devoted to these three processes.

This study is isolated from a complex and practical program of measurement. Many problems worthy of intensive study are closely interrelated and will influence the results of this one. These can merely be recognized and their influence hypothetically considered.

Checksum

b11a9b52e72c730ea5c298c787ab1d69

Download

Included in

Education Commons

Share

COinS

Copyright for this work is retained by the student. If you have any questions regarding the inclusion of this work in the Digital Commons, please email us at .