Commercial tests and how to use them

Front matter

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[OOL EFFICIENCY MONOGRAPH

Part One — A Discussion Of The Problem I

THE SCHOOLS AND BUSINESS EMPLOYMENT

Defective Preparation of Students the problem considered in chicago

IN 1912, the author, then a member of the committee on education of the Chicago City Club, brought about the organization of a special joint committee of the Chicago Association of Commerce and the Board of Education. For a number of weeks this committee met every Thursday at the Union League Club, and it made a report in January, 1913. The business men made bitter criticisms of the schools, and the educators resented these criticisms as unjust. The fact is that the training which our schools give to the young people who enter business is seriously lacking in something. What is it? The New York Chamber of Commerce answers effectively in its report of June 27, 1917 :

REPORT OF NEW YORK CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

"Your committee first directed its studies to the public commercial high schools and their product, and while in the progress of this work it found many things where it believed improvement could and should be made, it was soon forced to the conclusion that higher education, to be valuable and effective, must be based upon sound and thorough elementary education, and there was ample evidence of weakness in this direction.

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"Your committee's inquiries, both among the teachers of the commercial schools and among those employers who desire to employ their product, disclosed a widespread opinion that the charge of general inefficiency among the graduates is not without foundation; that a large proportion of them are deficient in practical working knowledge of fundamental subjects such as reading, writing, spelling, and grammatical construction of the English language, and arithmetic and geography ; that the education consists largely of a smattering of superficial knowledge without the power of clear, definite thought and expression, and that they lack an appreciation of thoroughness, exactness, earnestness, and perseverance as factors in business success."

NEEDS OF HIGH SCHOOLS AND OF BUSINESS THE SAME

The New York Chamber of Commerce in speaking for the business world does not ask for any technical commercial training whatsoever, but simply asks for more efficiency in the regular work of the elementary schools. The high schools feel this need as well as do the business men. The preparation that is needed for business is very much the same as that which is needed to carry on the high-school studies. The business men cry out; the high schools are more quiet and patient, but are none the less sufferers. Both business men and high-school authorities ask that the standard of accuracy be raised for common operations. This can be done only by measurement and competition, and above all by the use of a single national standard.

Under the direction of the Superintendent a year or two ago a short test in arithmetic was given to students entering the New York high schools. The examiner said that he himself was able to solve all the problems in six minutes.

THE SCHOOLS AND BUSINESS EMPLOYMENT

Pupils were allowed forty minutes, yet it is reported that only 60 per cent of those who took the examination were able to pass it on a 60 per cent basis. In a district where two superintendents had been giving standardized tests, 72 per cent passed. The conclusion was that the competition of tests was useful to stimulate pupils to do better work.

The dean of freshmen of the New York Manual Training High School has stated that 60 per cent of the young people who enter that school drop out during the first year. Evidently they are unprepared to meet the severer requirements of the high schools and wilt under the work they are obliged to face.

Standard tests and short, intensive periods of hard work to prepare for those tests would tend to develop in students a hardness of fiber that would keep a larger percentage of them in school.

PREPARATION OF GENERAL CLERKS

In his report on commercial education in New York City, 1 Frank V. Thompson pointed out to the Board of Estimate and Control that among commercial employees, including sales clerks, only 15 per cent were stenographers or bookkeepers, while 85 per cent were in effect unrecognized in our system of commercial training. A survey made by the Cleveland Foundation showed that out of 2000 positions for young men listed at the Cleveland Y. M. C. A., 8 per cent were for stenographers, 10 per cent for bookkeepers, and 78 per cent for office boys and general clerks. More than half the girls who enter upon

1 Reprinted as Commercial Education in Public Secondary Schools, in School Efficiency Series, edited by Professor Paul H. Hanus and published by World Book Company. Mr. Thompson is now superintendent of schools in Boston.

office work become stenographers ; but this does not take into consideration the vast number of women sales clerks. We may be sure that 75 per cent of all commercial employees are general clerks, who have had no special training, little help in getting positions except through private employment agencies, and no recognizable rating of any sort among business men.

As large numbers of those who become office boys and general clerks leave school at the end of the seventh, eighth, or ninth grades, their training should necessarily be chiefly on the fundamentals of English and arithmetic, which are the principal technical tools that they will need in business, i It is largely from the general clerks who start as office boys that the business executives who control our industry and commerce are developed.

If standard tests on accuracy and speed in handling the common fundamentals could be used in schools and made the basis for an Efficiency Employment Register of those who leave school from any grade or year to go to work, these 75 per cent of office boys and general clerks would at last get something from the schools worth having in a vocational way, and the academic students going on through high school and college would be none the worse for the stimulation toward greater accuracy.

HOW BUSINESS MEN JUDGE APPLICANTS FOR OFFICE POSITIONS

In judging an applicant, the trained business man gets very important information through that first swift look which takes in dress, physical proportions, and the moral qualities of the applicant as they are stamped on his face.

The applicant is usually required to fill out an application blank. In the best-organized business houses these blanks are coming to be quite complicated affairs.

THE SCHOOLS AND BUSINESS EMPLOYMENT

A glance at the application blank shows penmanship, often it shows spelling, and in particular it shows power of mind and judgment in making answers. All these abilities are judged roughly. The very poor are immediately eliminated; but there is no very good way to distinguish between the persons worth say $6, and $8, and $10 a week, since the test of the application blank is practical rather than scientific.

After these two tests — appearance and the written application — the business man at present falls back on trial and observation under working conditions. The constant shifting of employees is evidence that the two usual tests serve their purpose very imperfectly.

COST OF CHANGING HELP

If the employer knew the different combinations of ability in applicants, he could avoid changing help as often as he does. The cost of changing help in offices has not been accurately investigated; but careful figures compiled by a well-known firm of automobile makers show the cost of replacing a skilled mechanic to be over $80. First, there is the cost of finding the man and putting him on the pay-roll. Then, there is the cost of teaching him the special requirements of the particular position. It takes him a couple of weeks to learn where things are, and just what is wanted of him. When everything is taken into consideration, $80 seems a moderate estimate of the cost of changing an employee.

EFFICIENCY INCREASED BY STANDARD MEASUREMENTS

The efficiency of most office forces remains distinctly below what it ought to be. Some office forces are very superior, and some are very inferior, but no employer really knows how his force compares with others.

A general use of standard measurements would undoubtedly reduce the turnover of office employees as much as 25 per cent, and so save thousands of dollars to employers. The efficiency of the office force could also be materially raised by the elimination of those below grade, who now dilute practically every collection of office employees.

In times of shortage (war times, for example) our Efficiency Employment Register of those leaving school to go to work would make it possible to control and use the available supply so as to save a waste in distribution from present haphazard methods which, if estimated at 25 per cent, would in effect add 500,000 employees to the 2,000,000 who now leave school annually in the United States to go to work.

ACCURACY ON FUNDAMENTALS AS VOCATIONAL EQUIPMENT

The proper vocational equipment for three fourths of all commercial employees is accuracy and speed in handling figures, and correctness in spelling, punctuating, reproducing instructions, and composing letters.

All who go to the public schools study the fundamental subjects. What is wanted for business is a superior degree of mastery of such parts of them as will be used. How can these fundamental subjects be handled so as to give them a true vocational character? The answer is plain, — by measuring speed and accuracy in such a way that employers will award positions partly on the records of such measurements. The thing to do is to establish standards of measurement, and to issue a national employment list that will record the measurements and make them available to employers.

THE SCHOOLS AND BUSINESS EMPLOYMENT COOPERATION BETWEEN EDUCATORS AND BUSINESS MEN

It has been suggested that business men ought to take hold of our commercial schools and have such tests of ability to perform common operations in the business office substituted for the ordinary academic examinations. Part of the trouble is that educators know only in a general way what business men want. Quite as important is the fact that business men themselves know only in a general way what it is that they want. Neither side has analyzed the situation thoroughly.

The author has long felt that the greatest need of commercial education is the hearty cooperation of business men and educators. While a member of the Committee on Education of the Chicago City Club, he conceived that this might be brought about by having the business men formulate standards of ability to perform common operations in the business office. These standards were to form the basis of tests on which the business men would be willing in part to base employment of graduates of the public schools, and which educators might use as a guide in training their pupils.

Experience has shown that it is troublesome and difficult to give tests to applicants in the hurry of employing them, especially when help is scarce and practically all who apply must be employed. What business men want is to have tests given in schools, or they want public tests so that they can call for the records and see at a glance the measure of an applicant's ability.

EFFECTS OF MEASUREMENT

The establishment of tests as part of the basis of employment, as tests are now part of the basis of employment in the civil service, will mobilize the forces of employment behind the public schools and no doubt will raise the standard of the pupils. The ability of the office boy and the general clerk will immediately become a marketable commodity; the business man will know what he is getting ; the young person of superior ability will secure prompt and intelligent recognition, whether or not he possesses the self-advertising qualities that now have so much weight with employers.

A GRADED SCALE OF WAGES

The almost inevitable effect of this measurement of fundamental ability will be the end of the present system of level pay for all beginners. As soon as employers begin to compete for the best talents, they will pay more for the good help, and less for the poor ; and where pupils are now satisfied with mere 60 or 70 per cent passing marks, they will then try to make the highest possible grades, since their ratings will make a difference in the pay at which they will be able to start to work.

No business man, by looking at a boy or girl, or even by examining an application blank, can distinguish the person capable of getting 202 figures in the answers of a nine-minute arithmetic test with only one error, or the one getting 42 figures in nine minutes with 5 errors. Yet the arithmetic tests of 280 boys and girls graduating from one school district in New York would instantly show these actual records. By looking at the spelling of words on an application blank, a business man might pick out the boy who on a test misspelled 24 words out of 50 common, easy terms ; but he probably would see no difference between the boy who missed 7 words out of 50 and was really a poor speller, and the one who missed none at all. The business man may distinguish between the stenographer who can transcribe 15 words a minute

THE SCHOOLS AND BUSINESS EMPLOYMENT with seven errors per hundred words and the one who can transcribe 57 words a minute with one error per hundred words; but he will see little difference between the girl who transcribes 25 words a minute with three errors, and the one who transcribes 37 words a minute with one error. He will probably pay both the same wages, whereas if the first one is worth $12 a week the second is worth $18 a week. It is very unwise to' pay both $15 a week, as is usually done.

Many employers have been discouraged by the seeming indisposition of their employees to prepare themselves for higher positions. There can be no doubt that the substitution of definite conditions of promotion for vague promises will banish suspicions of favoritism and induce employees to strive for advancement.

Give prospective employees in schools, and candidates tor promotion m business, something definite to work at m order to obtain the higher-grade positions, and they will promptly respond.

II The Organization of a National Committee incorporation

WITH a view to promoting efficiency both in schools and in business offices, a national committee was organized in 1913. It was the direct outgrowth of the meetings of the special joint committee of the Chicago Association of Commerce and the Board of Education. The committee consists one third of educators and two thirds of persons in business, with a large number equally interested in business and education, and with as many members as possible representing other national organizations that would naturally coSperate. This committee was incorporated under the laws of Illinois as the National Associated Schools of Scientific Business. It was not organized for profit directly or indirectly. The present officers are ex-Governor W. N. Ferris, president ; Gerald B. Wadsworth, advertising expert with A. W. Shaw Co., New York, vice-president ; Joseph Cummins, of Chicago, attorney and treasurer ; and Sherwin Cody, of Chicago and New York, managing director and secretary. On the board of trustees are Frank V. Thompson, superintendent of schools in Boston, one of the leading experts in the country on high-school commercial education; W. D. Lewis, principal of the William Penn High School in Philadelphia; B. F. Williams, president of the National Association of Accredited Schools, the strongest private business colleges in the country; E. A. Rumely, whose Interlaken School was a notable American educational experiment; A. S. Hall, principal of the Medill High School, Chicago; Mrs. Anne F.

Hickman, head of the stenographic department, Hume-Fogg High School, Nashville, Tennessee. Altogether, the committee includes some of the leading commercial educators of the country. On the business side among the trustees are Col. C. A. Carlisle, of South Bend, long advertising manager of the Studebaker Corporation, and an independent system expert, and Herbert M. Temple, public accountant, St. Paul. During its working period the committee included E. H. McCullough, of Chicago, the efficient secretary of the National Implement and Vehicle Association; Waldron O. Rand, of Boston, chairman of the educational committee of the American Association of Public Accountants, which has long had a deep interest in commercial education; Dr. Katherine M. H. Blackford, now of New York, who attained national reputation as an employment expert with Harrington Emerson; C. A. Prosser, former secretary of the National Association for the Promotion of Industrial Education, now director of the Federal Board of Vocational Education, who was elected at the suggestion of Secretary Redfield; H. Walton Heegstra, advertising expert, Chicago ; and Paul Mandeville, wholesale produce merchant, Chicago. These have recently been replaced by E. St. Elmo Lewis, Detroit and New York; C. R. Hebble, executive secretary Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce; W. M. Jackson, formerly employment manager of the National City Bank of New York ; and David M. Roth, memory expert and chairman of the "Schools — miscellaneous" section of the National Association of Rotary Clubs.

EARLIER TESTS

This committee found in use two types of tests, (1) pure psychological tests such as the Binet-Simon tests or the tests since adopted for use with the United States Army,

[in and the tests devised by Professors Thorndike and Scott for the employment department of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company; and (2) standardized educational tests used in school surveys, in the employment departments of the National Cloak & Suit Company, the Curtis Publishing Company, and the Western Union Telegraph Company. The Courtis Tests in Arithmetic are fairly representative of these.

DEVISING NEW TESTS

The committee concentrated its attention on developing and trying out -a series of elementary tests of ability to perform common operations in the business office. The purpose was to measure speed and accuracy, and also to determine the fundamental education which all office employment presupposes. A series of tests devised and printed in June, 1914, was tried by the employment managers of the National Cloak & Suit Company, the National Cash Register Company, the Burroughs Adding Machine Company, the Commonwealth Edison Company, Swift and Company, and (in a limited way) Marshall Field and Company.

These trials were made to determine what tests were practical, how long the tests needed to be, and what different kinds of tests were required. As a result, 20 short, simple tests were devised, and these met with the unanimous approval of the employment managers of the houses that cooperated in the experiment. They were adapted to examining in about an hour's time the following classes of office employees on the points indicated :

1 . Office boys and girls.. Fundamental education in adding, spelling, and writing a letter of application according to definite instructions ; a test to show mental alert* ness ; and a test to show power to concentrate the mind on business instructions and to reproduce them.

2. General clerks, 16 years of age and older. Reproduction of instructions; clerical accuracy in filling out blanks, such as a retail-store invoice; speed and accuracy in handling fractions by short-cut methods, and percentage; copying addresses and arranging them alphabetically ; writing a letter of application as directed.

3. Stenographers of lowest grade. Reproduction ; advanced spelling; elementary punctuation; copying a typewritten blank for mimeographing; taking a dictated letter in shorthand at 100 words a minute and transcribing ; writing a full letter of application.

4. Stenographers of secretarial class or beginning correspondents. Reproduction; full test on grammar and punctuation; advanced spelling; taking dictated letter and transcribing; composing three original letters in reply to inquiries referring to four pages of Wanamaker's catalogue. In this last test, the sheets from the catalogue were furnished in advance to the persons examined. The purpose was to see if they would notice that you cannot ship shoes without knowing the size desired, and that questions may be answered from the illustrations; whether they would use tact and patience in dealing with customers on trifling matters ; and whether they could compose and punctuate letters in good style.

5. Bookkeeping clerks. Speed and accuracy in arithmetic; clerical accuracy in handling checks, notes, money-order applications, bank-deposit slips, and invoice forms; copying addresses and alphabetizing. There were no technical questions on bookkeeping theory, because modern systems of bookkeeping are not generally taught in schools, and because to employers the important point is to get men of good material whom they can train.

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BULLETIN NO. 1

Twenty of these tests, revised and shortened, were published on March 20, 1915, in a 24-page pamphlet designated as "Bulletin No. 1." The revision resulted from suggestions made by a number of employment managers, and from a study of the tests used by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, the National Cloak & Suit Company, and the Curtis Publishing Company. At the same time the United States Bureau of Education sent out its Vocational Letter No. 5, which contained a report of the investigation and included an offer to furnish the tests on request. This report was printed in full in the New York Times and many other newspapers. In response to requests, Bulletin No. 1 was widely distributed, particularly to schools, by the United States Bureau of Education.

TRYING THE NATIONAL TESTS

The next great problem was to develop a quick and easy way of grading and checking the tests, and to arrive at standards that would indicate what grades ought to be made and how they should be interpreted. The constant purpose was to eliminate the variable element of personal judgment.

Dr. George D. Stray er, of Teachers College, Columbia University, head of the Commission on Tests of the United States Bureau of Education, laid down the general principles for grading and judging the tests. He approved the plan that was finally worked out and actually applied in 4169 separate experimental tests which were given to about 500 individuals through the courtesy of the following business houses and institutions :

Marshall Field and Company; Swift and Company;

Commonwealth Edison Company; Sears, Roebuck and Company; National Cash Register Company; Burroughs Adding Machine Company; Bureau of Credits, Detroit; National Cloak & Suit Company; Filene's, Boston; Boston Clerical High School; Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce (open, public test, mostly of high-school graduates) ; Chamber of Commerce, and Spencerian Business College, Newburgh, New York; Holyoke (Massachusetts) High School; Walla Walla (Washington) High School ; Y. M. C. A., Chicago (prize competition open to grammar and high-school graduates, 150 entries) ; Wendell Phillips High School, Chicago (one test) ; Central School, Troy, New York (under inspection of committee of business men).

THE PERSONS TESTED

The persons who took the tests were carefully selected as representatives of the special classes whose ability it was desired to standardize. The averages that were made are therefore very nearly typical for different parts of the country and probably for the country as a whole. They represent, however, the higher level.

RESULTS OF THE TESTS

The first test given in the office of the Burroughs Adding Machine Company was on spelling. A young woman who was working nights to become a dictaphone operator made an average of 59 per cent. It was instantly apparent that she could never succeed in writing letters from the dictaphone unless she first learned to spell, and that she and the company were wasting time. In another case the clerks in a bookkeeping department were shown to be distinctly below grade as a whole, due perhaps to an erroneous standard of employment.

It seems that in every business house there are intelligent-looking persons who were hired because they appeared satisfactory and were agreeable, but whose capacities are far below the average. For example, in a bookkeeping department one person showed averages as follows, compared with the averages of the records of the department (his included) :

Individual : Reproduction poor ; business papers, 44 per cent; bookkeeping accuracy, 36 per cent; fractions, speed 17, errors 11.

Department: Reproduction fair; business papers, 75 per cent; bookkeeping accuracy, 73 per cent; fractions, speed 36, errors 5.

In a very high-grade stenographic department, one girl alone showed the following comparison :

Individual : Words per minute 15 ; errors 7.

Department : Words per minute 49 ; errors 2.

Another individual : Words per minute 57 ; errors none.

In a high school which was at the head of the list on the bookkeeping and figuring tests, 18 stenographers out of 30 fell below the standard minimum of 35 words a minute in transcribing shorthand notes, and those 18 averaged 12 words a minute. One high school had a single stenographer, out of 20, who was able to make 35 words a minute; while in another school only 5 out of 19 were not above 35. In still another high school none reached the 35-word minimum.

It seems likely, though the tests were not given widely enough to prove it, that superiorities and weaknesses may be shown for different cities. Grammar-school graduates in one city showed a knowledge of elementary applied grammar that might be represented by 16 per cent. In general, however, not one grammar-school graduate in ten seems to have any knowledge whatever of grammar as applied in choosing the right form when the right and wrong are given on points of universal application, as in the test on page 114.

It appears that correspondence is taught in schools chiefly as a matter of the form of the letter. In one high-grade correspondence department in a business house, the average rating on getting the facts right (on a scale of 5) was 4, or good. Among order writers and similar clerks in another department of the same concern, the average on facts was good, 3-J; in the local high school the average was poor, 2^. Tact among the business correspondents was good, 4 ; among the general clerks good, 3^-; and in the schools poor, If. Among the business correspondents, form and correctness in English were excellent, 5 ; among the general clerks fair, 3 ; and among the schools good, 4 plus.

In most subjects, however, high-school graduates are generally well up to business employees of experience; they are above them in some subjects, but are inferior in accuracy.

Another curious fact was that in general only college graduates were able to make a grade on grammar approaching 100 per cent (no rules, definitions, or analyses were required; only common examples of wrong form and right form were given). Ability to punctuate ran distinctly below knowledge of grammar, except in one office where the stenographers were of especially high grade.

The standard of accuracy in modern touch typewriting was shown to be singularly high. Scores of letters had scarcely a mis-touched key.

BULLETINS NOS. 2, 3, AND 4

The third edition of the National Business Ability Tests was published in January, 1916, as Bulletin No. 2.

The issue is accompanied by a Key and a uniform system of grading, suggested by Dr. Strayer. It gives a further revised and perfected version of the same tests. On the record blank are shown, side by side with individual markings, the averages for grammar-school graduates, graduates of the commercial departments of high schools, and experienced employees, chiefly of the class of stenographers and bookkeepers. These may fairly be accepted as standard minimums. Also there are recorded the averages of the five highest (fairer than the one highest, who might be a genius or a special expert). The good employee or student ought to have a record somewhere between these two, and the business man who looks over the individual record will have just what he needs for comparison.

Bulletins No. 3 and No. .4 provide a second and a third parallel series of tests.

Fresh tests, closely parallel though different, are being prepared at intervals, so that secret tests of the same value as the model tests will always be available for use by various institutions. The tests have been shortened, although the proportionate ratings have been pretty closely preserved, and they can be given in 2 to 18 minutes. All the tests for any one applicant, as a stenographer tested on 9 points, can be given in about an hour and graded in 10 to 15 minutes. Any good clerk can easily learn to give the tests, and also to grade them by the Key.

THE 100 PER CENT STANDARD

In such work as figuring, spelling, typewriter operation, filling out business papers, filing, and copying, the business world demands approximately a 100 per cent standard of accuracy, while the schools have a 60 or 70 per cent standard, which is appropriate enough to such

[ 18 1 subjects as Latin and Greek, where the 100 per cent standard is impossible. The National Business Ability Tests, if they can be generally established in offices and schools, will undoubtedly stimulate schools to adopt the 100 per cent standard in certain subjects, as in spelling. Leonard Ayres, of the Russell Sage Foundation, listed 23,000 words taken at random from 2000 business and professional letters and found that seven eighths of them could be included in a list of 542, less than half of which were likely to give trouble in spelling. Obviously schools can teach most pupils to spell correctly every one of those words. R. C. Eldredge, a factory manager in Niagara Falls, New York, classified all the words in 270 newspaper articles by 200 different writers and found a total of 6002. Some of these words were special and used but once, many were common and easy, and about 1200 might have required spelling drill. Even the 1200 may be mastered practically to the 100 per cent point if pupils will concentrate on them. Professor W. Franklin Jones, of the University of South Dakota, carried out an even larger experiment, listing some 15,000,000 words of composition. He found that all the words used more than once numbered 4532, of which about 1000 might require special concentrated spelling drill. If the words that are always being misspelled can be mastered by every one, most of our spelling trouble will disappear. If the National Spelling Tests are taken from a known list of 1000, those who wish to pass the tests and get employment will master practically all of them.