An Introduction to the Theory of Mental and Social Measurements

Abstract

AMERICAN colleges seem more awake than our own to the fact that the newer methods of statistics have made it possible to deal with facts with which they are directly concerned, and to discuss them with far more completeness than was practicable a few years ago. They are making in consequence large collections of anthropometric data to serve as tests of health and development, and for comparisons between colleges. Again, there are more teachers in America than in this country who, appreciating the fact that the above methods have far wider applicability, extend the range of their measurements to psychophysical subjects. They are also eager to deal with purely psychical matters that elude direct measurement but admit of being arranged by mutual comparison into their proper class places, or to utilise a third and still more general method, which deals with such objects as can be sorted into a few distinct classes without regard to their internal arrangement. The author is fully justified in saying that

An Introduction to the Theory of Mental and Social Measurements.

By Edward L. Thorndike, Professor of Psychology in Teachers' College, Columbia University. Pp. xii + 212. (New York: The Science Press, 1904.) Price 1.50 dollars net.