Tabulating and Test-Scoring Machines: Applications of International Business Machines to Educational Research

Abstract

ANY REVIEW of the literature on applications of machine methods to tabulation, computation, and test scoring at the present time will be incomplete and inadequate. Many applications of machine methods have not yet been given formal publication. The present review will be limited to the machines developed by the International Business Corporation and to applications of those machines to educational research. No single book covers the variety of machines available or the variety of applications possible. It is hoped that the long promised (since 1935) publication on Questionnaires, Standard Codes, and Hollerith Machines by H. A. Toops will be published soon. The IBM machines include a large variety of punches, sorters, accounting machines, auxiliary machines, and special devices. The less well-known machines are the alphabetical interpreter, which prints punched information across a card; the collator which compares two sets of punched cards in order to match them or merge them; the duplicating summary punch; the gang summary punch; the automatic reproducing punch; and the automatic multiplying punch. Some special devices are the cross-footing device which makes possible computations such as E [(A X B) + C + D]; the card cycle total transfer device which enables speedier summation of cumulative sums; the card matching device for selection of specified profiles; the digit selector particularly useful for item analysis; the marksensing device which punches data into punch cards from pencil marks; and the test scoring device for grading questionnaires like the Strong Vocational Interest blanks. In addition, the IBM machines include the test scoring machine with its graphic item counter and the aggregate weighting device. The machines, in general, make for greater speed in recording, classifying, and tabulating data, and in computing statistics. Because of great speed, the availability of data makes for greater statistical control of multivariate background data and extends the possibilities of research reporting.