STATEMENT OF ROGER W. RUSSELL, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION; ACCOMPANIED BY LEE J. CRONBACH, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

Dr. RUSSELL. As representatives of the American Psychological Association, we wish to express our appreciation for the opportunity to discuss with you problems of science and education in the United States. These are problems to which you have already given much careful thought. Among them are several with which psychologists, because of their training, research, and experience, have long been concerned.

We wish, sir, to speak particularly, as you have invited us, about S. 3163 and S. 3187. We would like to select from those bills certain areas in which we feel that, as psychologists, we have some particular competence.

I will speak in terms of six general areas. First, the nature and identification of talent. Second, testing programs. Third, motivation of talented students. Fourth, counseling and counselor training. Fifth, science information service. Sixth, research.

Because I have said that we believe we have some particular competence, sir, in these particular areas, I would like to give you some information about the association itself.

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION

The American Psychological Association is a scientific and professional organization of about 16,000 members. Membership requirements include graduate training in psychology and experience in one or more of the several areas of specialization within the general field. The association is organized in 18 divisions, each representing an area of major scientific or professional interest. Among these divisions are the following: teaching of psychology, evaluation and measurement, educational psychology, school psychologists, counseling psychology, experimental psychology. Among the boards which guide the association's activities are an education and training board and a board of scientific affairs. These and other groups within the association plan and encourage actions by which the association and psychologists generally can contribute to the development of science and education in the United States.

As psychologists, we feel a certain responsibility to make sure that the research our profession has conducted on human ability and performance will be known to you as a guide to your decisions. It is then based upon our feeling of competence in the specific areas that we wish to speak to today.

SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENTS AND WORLD OPINION

Any discussion of manpower from our point of view has two basic assumptions or propositions, in a sense, which have considerable evidence to support them. One is that our country has had and always will have need for leaders with creative insight into science, engineering, and mathematics, and all the other aspects of human knowledge, into the language, traditions, and problems of other nations,

and into the nature of human behavior and social institutions. Today we are seeing scientific achievement itself employed to sway world opinion and to alter the balance in international relations. The importance of the various sciences in the formation of national policy is illustrated by the very fact that we are here trying to bring psychological findings to bear on our educational needs.

You have heard much from other witnesses regarding the vacancies in our scientific, professional, and technical forces. Psychology, like other sciences, is overwhelmed with opportunities for service and creative leadership for which we have too few qualified men. There are unfilled positions at both high and low levels in every branch of psychology and the demands for psychologists' services and research efforts are steadily increasing.

NO SHORTAGE OF TALENT

The second assumption about manpower is that the shortage of highly trained persons by no means indicates a shortage of talent. According to one study conducted under the auspices of the National Research Council and associated groups, the average scholastic aptitude score on the Army scale is 120 for college graduates, compared to 100 for the average of unselected men. The average for Ph. D.'s in several fields is about 130. Placing these figures against the national distribution of ability, we should expect 15 percent of our youth to be able to achieve average success in college, and about 7 percent to match the average Ph. D. in general academic aptitude. This implies that every person with the ability to graduate from college did so we could come near to 660,000 college graduates per year instead of our present 270,000. And, although only 8,000 Ph. D.'s actually are awarded per year, there appear to be 300,000 persons in each year group who might reasonably expect to attain a Ph. D. if they turned their efforts in that direction. Our scientific manpower problem is not a shortage of talent but a failure to attract enough students into advanced and specialized training, and it is to this point that I would like to speak in detail later.

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INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

One way to approach the issues which we feel competent to discuss is by beginning with a basic reality of mankind-individual differences. Individual difference in all dimensions characterize man's constitution and his behavior. This includes individual differences in those aptitudes and abilities which underlie a person's educational potential and his later occupational success.

These individual differences are important from two general points of view. They are important to each citizen since he can expect that our American form of democracy will provide opportunities for him to realize the full extent of his educational potential. They are also basic to our country's well-being, which depends upon conservation of human resources in the sense of utilizing all human talents as fully as possible.

Individual differences in aptitudes and abilities are products of interactions between each individual's heredity and his environment.

Although many attempts have been made to isolate and measure separately these hereditary and environmental influences, no attempt has yet been completely successful. Our tests can at best give us evidence of the individual's developed abilities. We are dealing with the individual as he is. Psychological tests are nothing more than careful observations of actual performance under standard conditions.

IDENTIFICATION OF APTITUDE

At the present time the Nation appears to be primarily concerned with identifying and assisting those students who have the greatest aptitude for higher education, with special consideration for those with superior capacity and preparation in science, mathematics, engineering, or modern foreign language. But this preoccupation with the especially talented should not let us ignore the fact that a healthy, vigorous society depends upon contributions from all its members.

For every creative citizen at the frontier of research and development there are needed many citizens whose talents can support new discoveries and help to put them to work. In this sense "all of God's children are gifted" and each should have opportunities to contribute his particular gifts to productive output.

We have examined the bills from this point of view and are pleased to reach the conclusion that no provision in them threatens the opportunity of every child to receive a sound education.

Senator ALLOTT. No provision threatens it?

Dr. RUSSELL. That is correct, sir. What I am saying is, as far as we can see, this general interest which we have in all talents of our citizens is in no way infringed by any of the suggestions made in these bills.

IMPORTANCE OF FREE CHOICE OF STUDY

Among the especially talented there are individual differences in abilities and interests which lead to choices of different professions. In this regard, we are somewhat concerned that the emphasis on science and mathematics in S. 3163 and S. 3187 may have a restrictive effect. We certainly need talent in these fields and in engineering and modern foreign languages, but we also have need for talented people in medicine, law, business, and other professions. By overemphasizing certain fields now we may create shortages later. We endorse the provision in both bills which allows scholarship winners to choose any field of study.

Because of the value of aptitudes and abilities both to the individual and to the Nation, it is important to identify an individual's talents as early as possible and to provide educational environments in which their full potentialities may be realized. Identifying and measuring aptitudes and abilities are problems to which psychologists and educators have devoted much effort for many years with considerable

success.

RESEARCH INTO INDIVIDUAL CAPABILITIES

Early in the last century in Britain, Sir Francis Galton shifted the emphasis in research on human behavior from characteristics of the average man to the measurement of individual differences in man's

capabilities. In France, Alfred Binet saw that educational success varied greatly among children of the same chronological age and developed some of the first useful methods of measuring characteristics of the child which predicted with considerable accuracy his later school achievement. During the First World War, United States Army psychologists first developed testing procedures which could be applied to large numbers of men and which aided greatly in placing individuals in jobs which they could learn to perform successfully. Testing procedures are now accepted as standard features of personnel programs in the military services, industry and educational systems,

TEST SCORES AS MEASURES OF INTELLECT

This long background in measuring individual differences in aptitudes, abilities, and skills has included literally hundreds of careful studies which have produced convincing evidence of the advantages of testing procedures. These procedures furnish a standardized, comparable set of observations of students who may have different teachers, who attend schools with different grading standards, and who come from widely different socioeconomic environments. Unlike grades, which may be influenced by the teacher's impression of the student's industry and conduct, test scores are direct measures of intellectual performance.

Tests can identify pupils of superior potentiality who are handicapped by poor reading skill, or by the fact that English is rarely spoken in their homes. Tests, if used knowledgeably, identify the larger number of students who are in the ranges of talents from which creative scientists, engineers, educators, and other high-level specialists are most likely to emerge.

LIMITATIONS ON TEST PROCEDURES

These are very significant advantages, but there are also limitations to test procedures which must be fully recognized in planning any identification program. There is no strong evidence that tests measure potential creativity or inventiveness. They will not pick out particular individuals who will make new discoveries and put them to work. Tests are not pushbutton, slot-machine devices where children go in one end and a guaranteed list of future Einsteins comes out the other. Test results give expectancies rather than biographies in advance.

Tests do not identify distinctive types of talent. The student who is weak in mathematics cannot succeed in certain careers, but beyond that point we have at present no secure guides to distinguish aptitude for scientific research from aptitude for the diplomatic service or military command or any other high-level responsibility. The student who has ability for advanced training in one discipline has the ability for advanced training in the others, unless he has serious gaps in his preparation. This is shown by the success of large numbers of students who shift from one field of study to another during their college careers, after exposure to the broad range of culture awakens interests previously dormant.

PAST EXPERIENCE WITH TESTS

Wisdom requires that, whenever possible, we base decisions on facts rather than opinions. Let us look for a moment at the results of some of our past experience with tests.

One report finds that among the college applicants who rank in the top 20 percent on a test, there will be an occasional student who failsbut for every failure there will be 32 satisfactory students, including 15 who win honors.

High test performance also forecasts superior accomplishment in professional careers. One extensive research project studied 800 men who had been identified as superior on a general mental test given at age 10. By the time these men reached the age of 40, they had published 67 books (46 of them scholarly) and more than 1,400 scientific, technical, and professional articles. They had more than 150 patents to their credit. Nearly all of these numbers are from 10 to 30 times as large as would be found in the general population.

We could give other examples, but all the evidence indicates that tests, when properly used, can provide very serviceable aids in the identification of talents and in the counselling and guidance of students having different talents in different degrees. The potential value of these aids has been recognized in both S. 3163 and S. 3187. Much will depend-and we would like to emphasize this-much will depend upon the wise selection and interpretation of tests and upon the very careful planning of testing programs.

KINDS OF TESTING PROGRAMS

So we would with this transition like to say just a bit about certain characteristics of testing programs themselves, the kind of programs which will certainly be involved if legislation of this kind is passed. There are two advantages toward which testing programs will be aimed. One is for the student's benefit. Here I would like to point out that many able students do not realize their own ability. They drift through school, often with above-average grades, but omit many basic subjects and never consider the professions that college opens to them. I want to say something more about this later because I think this is a particularly important issue. If college is not in the family tradition, or if no teacher happens to single out the student and show him a higher goal, he may leave school 4 to 8 years before his abilities are fully trained.

The following case history is matched by hundreds of others in the files of schools which have testing and counseling programs:

A CASE HISTORY

Robert Fenchley entered high school with a long record of belowaverage grades. He developed a dislike for reading and written work, and avoided preparing written assignments which would reveal his inadequacies. He apparently was becoming certain that mentally he was below average. A testing program showed that his reading ability was in the lowest third of the class, but it also showed that in 4 different types of reasoning ability he was in the highest 5 percent. This test report delighted him. His teachers could see new self