Psychological Test Score Sheet, Vineland Social Maturity Scale

Description:

Edgar A. Doll (1889-1968) was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and attended Cornell University where he majored in education but also studied psychology under Edward B. Titchener. He then worked at the Vineland Training School in New Jersey, where he met and married Agnes Louise Martz in 1914. In 1916 he obtained his master of education degree from New York University, writing a dissertation on anthropometry as an aid to mental diagnosis. During World War I, Doll volunteered to do psychological testing in the Sanitary Corps of the U.S. Army. Afterward, he returned to graduate work, completing a PhD. from Princeton in 1920 and being appointed as the New Jersey state psychologist. He then taught for a time at Ohio State University before returning to head research at the Vineland Training School from 1925 until his retirement in 1953. He and his wife then moved to Bellingham, Washington, where he served as a consultant to the local public schools.

Doll found that contemporary psychological tests did not measure the social competence of individuals – two people with the same IQ might differ considerably in their self-sufficiency and social usefulness. For this reason, he developed a scale of “social maturity.” The Vineland Social Maturity Scale was copyrighted in 1936 by the Department of Research at Vineland. These are blank score sheets for two versions of the test. The first apparently was published at Vineland and is not dated. The second is the Experimental Form B (Revised 1/15/36), published by the Psychological Corporation. It contains 117 questions and is four pages long. The traits and abilities on the test begin with basic cognitive function and become increasingly complex.

Compare 1983.00168.07 and 1990.0034.051. See also 1990.0034.049, 1990.0034.050 and 1990.0034.052 through 1990.0034.054.

References:

American Psychological Association, 1962 Directory, ed. James Q. Holsopple, Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 1962, p. 174.

Eugene E. Doll, “Edgar A. Doll: A Career of Research and Application,” Portraits of Pioneers in Psychology, eds. Gregory A. Kimble, C. Alan Boneau, Michael Wertheimer, New York: Psychology Press, 1996, vol. II, esp. pp. 167-183.

Leila Zenderland, Measuring Minds: Henry Herbert Goddard and the Origins of American Intelligence Testing, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.