Logical Analysis Skill as a Tool for Career Guidance. Final Report

The report describes a new kind of psychological testing machine, the Logical Analysis Device (LAD), and the attempts to use it for predicting academic grades of 97 freshmen engineering students at The Cooper Union in 1958, 77 of whom were re-tested in 1962. The LAD system allows a subject to proceed in his own way and at his own pace to solve problems which increase in complexity, while recording how the subject solves a problem and the level of difficulty he has mastered. As problems increase in complexity, the subject must develop a logical procedure for arriving at an effective solution. The research was based on two hypotheses, that freshman LAD scores would not change significantly during 4 years of college, and that freshman or senior scores could probably predict career choices within occupations followed by engineering graduates of The Cooper Union (electrical, chemical, mechanical, and civil engineering). A correlation of .14 between freshman LAD scores and 4-year college grades was too low to add to usual grade predictors. A correlation of .39 between senior-year LAD and college grades showed that there was a significant relationship between senior year LAD scores and grades. No significant differences in mean LAD scores of those preferring more theoretical careers as opposed to less theoretical careers was found in the 1967-1968 career reports. A later career follow-up is planned. (Author/WM)