Presenting Educational Measurements so as to Influence the Public Favorably

Abstract

The growth of educational measurements during the past decade, curiously enough, cannot be adequately described in simple numerical terms. We have statistics enough about the number of tests sold, the numbers of books and articles treating of measurements, and the lists of courses in measurement work offered in schools of education and summer sessions. But this growth has been so phenomenal that mere figures are too weak to express it. To do it justice, we need to employ forceful images such as likening it to the gigantic business expansions of the war period. But the great business concerns have been forced to curtail expansion and to devote their major energies to securing public demand for relatively small outputs. In like manner numerous rsigns indicate to a thoughtful observer that educational measure ments must soon face a similar situation. Effective work in school measurements requires amounts of money which unin formed taxpayers will surely withhold. As a new movement in school work and as an agency certain to secure and to publish the exact facts, it will be early attacked by unscrupulous politi cians accustomed to raise the economy cry with reference to public expenditures. To secure adequate financial support, it will be as necessary in the near future for ? measurement bureau to convince the taxpayers that it gives unusual value for their money, as it now is for an automobile manufacturer or a clothing merchant to prove that he is offering a superior product at a bargain. For the sake of better schools it is highly desirable that the educational measurement movement go steadily forward unhampered by lack of necessary financial support. To this end the speaker offers suggestions derived from an extensive study of the claims made for measurement work, as well as of publicity efforts in various school lines and in business salesmanship. Most analyses of successful procedure in publicity and salesmanship