Dawson Mental Tests?Forms A and B
Prepared by the Late Shepherd Dawson, M.A., D.Sc. Published by George G. Harrap & Co., Ltd.*
These Tests, published in booklet form, may be used for group testing of general intelligence. It must be stated forthwith, that the writer has had no opportunity of administrating the tests, observing the reaction of children to them, or, studying the results, but, by way of general comment, the following points can be mentioned :
1. The general layout of the test is confusing for younger children and for the dull child (norms are given for ages 9 to 18 years) for the reasons that:? (a) The book must be reversed before the Test can be started. (b) The items of the Tests are not clearly spaced. (c) There is involved considerable comprehension of written language. *For prices see Bibliography.
2. Test items are 011 the type commonly used in group tests of intelligence?e.g., analogies, opposites, number series and so on, etc. They are ingeniously devised and calculated to arouse the interest of capable children, but probably the younger and less able children will not be stimulated to maintain their greatest effort throughout the test, on account of the mass of material and the somewhat rapid gradation of difficulty.
3. It is all to the good that Testees are not expected to keep solely to underlining and ringing correct answers. They have the variety of writing and drawing answers now and again.
This relieves concentration but also it may penalise the child who is unduly slow. 4. The Teachers’ Manual of Instruction is very inadequate.
There is no information on the following points: ? (a) There are two Tests?A and B, and we are not told what is the purpose of them. Presumably they are alternatives, that is?B can be used for retesting after A. (b) We are not told within what range the tests are reliable, nor what is the correlation between the results from these tests and from any of the wellknown standardised Tests of intelligence. ? 5. A serious difficulty is the length of time that must be expended in scoring these tests. The author provides a key, but this serves merely to save the examiner from working out the more complicated itemsIt cannot be used with real ease and rapidity for correcting Tests.
6. A table of Norms is provided, but no statistical data is offered on which the Tester can judge the validity, reliability and standardisation of these tests.
In short, these tests serve to increase the number of mediocre tests that are now on the market, without making any scientific contribution to the development of group testing of intelligence.
G.R. Despite all the psychology we think we possess to-day, the psyche is still a foreign, almost unexplored, country, of which ive have only indirect knowledge; it is mediated by conscious functions that are subject to almost endless possibilities of deception. C. G. Jung.
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