Historical Framework - The Ball Foundation

The power of aptitudes is that when properly used they can provide information about how we may prefer to engage with different types of environments. Understanding who we are, how we learn, and how we can contribute in different settings can help us navigate or make decisions within quickly changing environments.

Part of our mission at The Ball Foundation is to expand awareness and access to what we feel is vital information that could help people and organizations with decision-making about work and other important performance areas. We recognize that aptitudes are necessary, but not sufficient, predictors of success and satisfaction in various performance environments. Motivation and Opportunity are essential to consider as well.

Aptitude information has a number of different applications. Because of the complexities and variety of settings, too few people have had the advantage of learning and using this information.

Among the reasons that aptitudes have remained relatively inaccessible to the public at large is that aptitude science is not a unified field. Specifically:

Aptitude science has its early roots in military recruit selection and classification
Aptitude testing has traditionally been used more on the employer side for selection purposes to determine basic aptitudes needed to perform at specified levels of competency and speed, instead of the individual’s side for career exploration and choice,
The published work done on and related to aptitudes has largely been conducted and disseminated within the world of academia, and thus may not be as readily available,
Because aptitude tests are timed and depend on some standardization, their delivery is more time and condition sensitive. Additionally, due to the complexities of using the results, a good understanding of the measures, norms, and relationship to performance environments being explored is vital. This is more complicated than a self-report survey.

We provide below a brief “birds-eye” view of the history behind the science and measurement of aptitudes. For a more in-depth examination of this long and expansive body of work, we recommend Dubois (1970) and Carroll (1993) as excellent resources.

History

During World Wars I and II, aptitude assessment was applied to the very practical problem of military recruit selection and classification. Overseen by Robert Yerkes, the success of group-administered intelligence tests (the Army Alpha and Beta tests) during WW1 intensified research into specific, individual vocational aptitudes and their use in predicting success in various roles (e.g., Louis Thurstone, Clark Hull, Henry Charles Link, Alfred Binet, Theodore Simon, Edwin Fleishman).

The groundwork for multiple-ability test battery development and usage began during the 1930’s. Examples of such batteries include the USES General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB; United States Employment Service, Dvorak, 1947), the Differential Aptitude Test (DAT; Bennett, Seashore, & Wesman, 1947), and the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB; United States Department of Defense, 1968). The GATB was used extensively by the US government and data collected from it provides the basis for the job analysis information included in the most current occupational taxonomy used by O*NET.

The United States Employment Service has produced a wealth of information concerning the role of aptitudes in the workplace. The figure below highlights the progression of some of the major USES milestones and products:

USES

Conceptual Frameworks

Due to the multitude of separate aptitudes under investigation after WWI, an opportunity presented itself to demonstrate a hierarchical categorization of the dimensions underlying the groups of aptitudes.

The early work of Louis Thurstone (1938) provided a foundational taxonomy and understanding of the ability domain with his Primary Mental Abilities (or PMAs). Over the years, a great deal of work has been done to refine and expand upon Thurstone’s work. Such efforts include:

Structure of Intellect Model (J.P. Guilford). This taxonomic framework of the abilities domain is exceptionally descriptive in nature. In it, Guilford proposed and organized 120 distinct cognitive abilities.

Hierarchical Model of Cognitive Abilities (Raymond Cattell and John Horn). This model of intellectual functioning depicts the relationships among broader general intelligence and specific cognitive abilities.

Three-Stratum Theory (John Carroll). John Carroll presented the most comprehensive factor-analytic investigation of abilities performed to-date. The result was a three-level, hierarchical structure of cognitive abilities that ranges from a lowest level of very specific abilities to a highest level of g or general ability.

Taken together, the abilities that have been consistently identified across studies and that tend to appear on most multi-aptitude test batteries today are generally reflective of Thurstone’s Primary Mental Abilities, or PMAs (featured in the sidebar).