Group testing

In psychometrics group testing is the administration of psychological tests such as intelligence measures, achievement measures etc to groups of people rather than to individuals.

Group administration was developed particularly in response to the need to evaluate a large number of soldiers being processed for service in the First World War. A committee of the American Psychological Association was set up under Robert Yerkes to make recommendations as to how this might be achieved. The outcome was the development of the Army Alpha and Army Beta tests which could be administered to large numbers of recruits. After the war the tests were released for civilian use and with revision they became the models of many of the group tests of intelligence.