History of a Technology? Are psychological selection tests technologies, or techniques (or something else)?
| Dates: | 18 February 2014 |
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| Times: | 13:00 - 14:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | Faculty of Life Sciences |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, Adults, Alumni, Current University students, General public, Post 16 |
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| Speaker: | Alice White |
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This seminar is part of the CHSTM Lunchtime Seminar Series
History of a Technology? Are psychological selection tests technologies, or techniques (or something else)?
Those participating in making officer candidate selection tests appear to have had quite different ideas about what was going on. Many senior Army personnel seemed to be of the opinion that they were paying experts to come up with tests for them to use to select candidates (indeed, this was the relationship that the Royal Navy and RAF had with their psychologists). But the psychiatrists and psychologists considered that they were developing a science of selection based on theoretical underpinnings, with applied tests which would evolve as knowledge on the fundamental principles evolved. Whether a working relationship was finite or ongoing, and whether tests were static or malleable, as well as the role and authority of psychological practitioners, seemed to hinge on the nature of what was being produced: science or technology?
“Psychological technology” is a term that has largely only been used by psychologists – this paper will ponder whether it is a term that works in the case of selection tests.
Speaker
Alice White
Role: PhD Student
Organisation: University of Kent
Travel and Contact Information
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2.57
Simon Building
Manchester
