It should also be insisted that the personal experience of this or that interviewer, adviser, teacher or expert is by no means a sufficient basis for general practice. Magic, clairvoyance, phrenology, physiognomics, were all founded on the treacherous basis of "personal observation" and occasional striking coincidence. Vocational psychology will be safe from prophets and charlatans only when it is made to rest on a stable structure of consistent and verifiable experimental data.
[9] See footnote on p. 42 for an explanation of the computation and meaning of such measures of deviation or error.
[10] Experimental Studies in Judgment, Archives of Psychology, No. 29, 1913, 119 pp.
[11] "American Men of Science." Second edition, p. 542.
[12] See p. 45 for explanation of the meaning and technique of correlation.
THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM AS A VOCATIONAL TEST
With certain qualifications the work of the school curriculum may be said to constitute an elaborate mental test. One important function of the curriculum is that of selecting and identifying individuals who possess a certain type of mental alertness or patience. Another function is that of supplying the individual with certain implements, facts and ideas, certain subject matter, which may or may not be of direct value in his later life but which is at least in this way perpetuated and preserved. A third function is that of affording opportunity for the exercise of such specific or general abilities as the curriculum may call into play.
All three of these functions have more or less direct vocational relevance. In the hands of industrial and technical interests, subject matter becomes more and more prominent as the important item. As this happens the older idea of discipline and exercise becomes subordinate or implicit. But, whatever be the underlying educational philosophy, the selective value of the curriculum is an inescapable fact. The public school system, by its processes of grading, promotion and certification, tends always to mark off as a distinct group those individuals who can and will meet its demands. It also attempts to differentiate the members of this group from one another on the basis of their ability or their inclination. The high schools, colleges, professional and technical courses continue this process of elimination, identification and selection. According to the student's ability and inclination to satisfy the requirements of the curriculum, he or she is dropped, graded, retarded, promoted or passed with honors.