Leaflet with Sheet, Otis Quick-Scoring Mental Ability Tests. Manual of Direction for Gamma Test Forms AM and BM
date: label: date made
content: 1937
name: label: publisher
content: World Book Company
label: author
content: Otis, Arthur S.
notes: label: Description
content: In the early twentieth century, the French psychologists Alfred Binet and Théodore Simon developed a test of the intelligence that could be given to individual children by properly trained staff. Psychologist Lewis Terman of Stanford University developed a form of this test – still involving manipulation of objects and speaking to children individually - called the Stanford-Binet scale. A graduate student of Terman, Arthur S. Otis (1886-1964) prepared a written form of the test that could be given to groups of children. It was tried in a few schools before the United States entered the fighting in World War I. At that time, Otis joined in the efforts of Terman and other American psychologists to use psychological testing to examine soldiers entering the U.S. Army. Otis worked with the Army Sanitary Corps and then the office of the Surgeon General. Some of his written tests were used in a battery of tests called the Army Alpha.
label: Description
content: At the end of the war, Otis returned to Stanford, completing his PhD. in 1920. The following year he joined the publisher World Book Company (not the publishers of the World Book encyclopedia) in Yonkers, New York, where he became editor for tests and mathematics. He held this post for some twenty-five years, also working for the federal government again at the time of World War II.
label: Description
content: World Book published the Otis Group Intelligence Scale in 1920 (see MA.316371.050). Two years later, it published the Otis Self-Administering Tests of Mental Ability. For examples of the version of this test that was designed for high school students and college freshmen see 1989.0710.03 and 1979.0710.04. By 1937, when this manual of directions was published, Otis had modified these tests and offered them as quick-scoring mental ability tests. The Alpha Test was for students in grades one through four, the Beta Test for students in grades four through six, and the Gamma Test for high school and college students. This if the manual of directions for the Gamma Test, a test which came in forms AM and BM. It was published by World Book Company, Otis’s employer.
label: Description
content: References:
label: Description
content: Siegel, Eleanor Jane, "Arthur Sinton Otis and the American Mental Testing Movement", PhD. Dissertation, Miami University, 1992.
label: Description
content: Paul A. Gade, “Profile: Arthur S. Otis (1886-1964),” <I>The Military Psychologist</I>, Summer 2018, 33 #2, pp. 25-27.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, Yonkers
topic: label: Subject
content: Mathematics
label: Subject
content: Psychological Tests
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Mathematics
label: See more items in
content: Science & Mathematics
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of David Gold
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1989.0710.20
label: accession number
content: 1989.0710
label: catalog number
content: 1989.0710.20
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Leaflet With Sheet
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 21.5 cm x 28 cm; 8 15/32 in x 11 1/32 in