Is the Wonderlic Test used outside of pro sports?

Answer 1

Check out the Wonderlic website - www.wonderlic.com Wonderlic tests are used across the board by companies, large and small, during the pre-employment process. Wonderlic assessments are a proven way for a company to cut down on turnover costs, and hire betting fitting employees.

Answer The "Wonderlic" used to test major league football players is more specifically known as the Wonderlic Personnel Test, or WPT. The WPT is a brief test of general intelligence, the scores of which can easily be converted to IQ scores using a formula.

Years of experience and Social Sciences research have shown that general intelligence, increasingly referred to as "g" by researchers, is the best single predictor of success in a job or in school (this does not justify using only a single test to make important hiring or acceptance decisions; see below). The predictive usefulness of general intelligence is the fundamental rationale for using the WPT as a pre-employment test in a great variety of occupations, ranging from pro football player to bank teller, police officer, engineering technician, or real estate sales agent.

Although useful, WPT is not the most accurate or comprehensive intelligence test. For example, the Wonderlic isn't an effective test for identifying or distinguishing gradations among very intelligent, or very deficient, people. For occupations associated with superior intelligence, such as lawyer, physician, engineer, or chemist, intelligence tests having higher ceilings can help distinguish between the brilliant and the merely bright. Examples of such tests are versions of the Stanford-Binet, Woodcock-Johnson, Wechsler, and Ravens Advanced. All of these must be administered by trained psychologists.

The WPT is better when used to create broad categories, such as above average, average, and below average; or "probably qualified" and "probably not qualified". Since the WPT has arguably been taken by more people than any other intelligence test used for pre-employment screening (Wonderlic scores can also be used for admission into Mensa and other high-iq groups), it has amassed considerable predictive validity. The WPT is also inexpensive and easily administered, even online.

Although intelligence tests have demonstrated utility and scientific validity in recruiting and screening potential employees, they must be used lawfully, carefully and with judgement. The most important rule is not to rely on intelligence tests, in and of themselves, in the decision to accept or reject someone. This is, by the way, a good rule to follow when using such tests in other ways, such as admitting people to graduate school, deciding who will be moved into a gifted education program, or who needs cognitive rehabilitation after suffering a stroke.