Project Talent
Encyclopedia
Project Talent was a large-scale, national survey of the abilities, aptitudes, inclinations, quality of life, and backgrounds of over 400,000 U.S. high school students (a 5% sample of all U.S. high school students at the time) undertaken in 1960. Follow-up studies were undertaken at 1, 5, and 11 years after graduation.
The study was conducted by the American Institutes for Research, led by John C. Flanagan
, then a psychology professor at the University of Pittsburgh
. It was initiated in 1957, in cooperation with the U.S. Office of Education (the precursor to the U.S. Department of Education
), the Office of Naval Research
and the National Science Foundation
. Four hundred and forty thousand high school students were tested during a four-day series of exams in what Dr. Flanagan described as “the first scientifically planned national inventory of human talents.”
led to creativity in identifying talents and abilities, including the development of aptitude tests that “transformed bakers and brokers into pilots, bombardiers and navigators.” Rather than relying on traditional criteria such as level of education or IQ, the tests matched raw abilities to particular skill sets.
The principal investigator was psychologist John C. Flanagan, who was at the time the head of the nonprofit organization the American Institutes for Research. In an interview with Time
magazine, published August 24, 1962, he stated that his experience with the wartime exams had convinced him that many U.S. workers were miscast into the wrong profession. He described Project Talent as a mechanism to provide the data to help better understand and ultimately to overcome this problem.
The test took place over four half-day sessions, using 23 tests designed by the Project Talent staff, to measure abilities and aptitudes in language, mathematics, and reasoning ability. In addition, students filled out surveys on family background, health, current activities in and out of school, future career plans (including plans for college and military service), and family plans.
Additionally, in an effort to report national norms for one complete age group (specifically 15-year-olds), the sample group of U.S. high school students was supplemented by a sample of 15-year-olds not in high school, including those still in lower grades, drop-outs, and graduates. This sub-sample was undertaken in 10% of the school districts in the sample.
The study was designed as a comprehensive survey with longitudinal follow-up. In the original Project Talent documentation, the study was intended to follow students for 25 years after graduation, with the last follow-up to take place in 1988 (25 years after graduation of the 1960 9th-grade class). In fact, follow-up studies took place at 1 year, 5 years, and 11 years after graduation.
Flanagan described seven specific reasons for the follow-up studies: Inventory the pool of available talent for training in science, engineering, and other professional fields; assess the relationships among aptitudes, interests, and other factors; determine the extent to which lack of interest or motivation limit the development of individuals' talents; identify the main factors affecting vocational choice; identify predictors of creativity and productivity; assess the effectiveness of various types of educational experience, and provide a basis for developing procedures for realizing individuals' potential.
The study was conducted by the American Institutes for Research, led by John C. Flanagan
John C. Flanagan
John C. Flanagan, was a noted psychologist most known for developing the Critical Incident Technique, which identifies and classifies behaviors associated with the success or failure of human activity. He was a pioneer of aviation psychology. During World War II Flanagan was commissioned by the U.S...
, then a psychology professor at the University of Pittsburgh
University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...
. It was initiated in 1957, in cooperation with the U.S. Office of Education (the precursor to the U.S. Department of Education
United States Department of Education
The United States Department of Education, also referred to as ED or the ED for Education Department, is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government...
), the Office of Naval Research
Office of Naval Research
The Office of Naval Research , headquartered in Arlington, Virginia , is the office within the United States Department of the Navy that coordinates, executes, and promotes the science and technology programs of the U.S...
and the National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
. Four hundred and forty thousand high school students were tested during a four-day series of exams in what Dr. Flanagan described as “the first scientifically planned national inventory of human talents.”
Origins
The need for rapid mechanization at the entry of the U.S. into World War TwoWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
led to creativity in identifying talents and abilities, including the development of aptitude tests that “transformed bakers and brokers into pilots, bombardiers and navigators.” Rather than relying on traditional criteria such as level of education or IQ, the tests matched raw abilities to particular skill sets.
The principal investigator was psychologist John C. Flanagan, who was at the time the head of the nonprofit organization the American Institutes for Research. In an interview with Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine, published August 24, 1962, he stated that his experience with the wartime exams had convinced him that many U.S. workers were miscast into the wrong profession. He described Project Talent as a mechanism to provide the data to help better understand and ultimately to overcome this problem.
Design and methodology of the study
The study's stated goal was to obtain a comprehensive sampling of U.S. high school students, using a 5% survey (a survey of 5% of the total population of U.S. high school students in 1960). Sophisticated sampling was used to identify 1,353 public, private, and parochial schools of all sizes and geographic locations in the United States, with the objective of sampling youth from all conceivable backgrounds.The test took place over four half-day sessions, using 23 tests designed by the Project Talent staff, to measure abilities and aptitudes in language, mathematics, and reasoning ability. In addition, students filled out surveys on family background, health, current activities in and out of school, future career plans (including plans for college and military service), and family plans.
Additionally, in an effort to report national norms for one complete age group (specifically 15-year-olds), the sample group of U.S. high school students was supplemented by a sample of 15-year-olds not in high school, including those still in lower grades, drop-outs, and graduates. This sub-sample was undertaken in 10% of the school districts in the sample.
The study was designed as a comprehensive survey with longitudinal follow-up. In the original Project Talent documentation, the study was intended to follow students for 25 years after graduation, with the last follow-up to take place in 1988 (25 years after graduation of the 1960 9th-grade class). In fact, follow-up studies took place at 1 year, 5 years, and 11 years after graduation.
Follow-up studies
Follow-up studies took place 1 year, 5 years, and 11 years after participants graduated from high school, using sub-samples of the original 377,000 participants. Thus, the most recent data is from 1974 (published 1975), 11 years after graduation of the 1960 9th-graders. A 20-year follow-up to begin in 1980 was planned but not completed.Flanagan described seven specific reasons for the follow-up studies: Inventory the pool of available talent for training in science, engineering, and other professional fields; assess the relationships among aptitudes, interests, and other factors; determine the extent to which lack of interest or motivation limit the development of individuals' talents; identify the main factors affecting vocational choice; identify predictors of creativity and productivity; assess the effectiveness of various types of educational experience, and provide a basis for developing procedures for realizing individuals' potential.
Data products
From the over 400,000 students tested in 1960, usable data was obtained on 377,000 individuals: ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth graders and a sample of 15-year-olds not in high school. The results produced 3,783 data records (about 100 megabytes) of information per student. The data was originally recorded on 5 million punched cards but later upgraded to a flat file and code book format. The 1960 sample includes 19,826 twins and other multiple birth children and 28,363 veterans.Etymology
In the 1960 documentation, Project Talent is usually written with “talent” not capitalized, but occasionally fully capitalized, although no acronym is ever described. It is not clear whether the authors intended to create, after the fact, an acronym for TALENT, or whether this was merely an inconsistently applied stylistic choice. Later documentation, especially university collections warehousing Project Talent data and scientific articles, is also inconsistent in presenting the project in some places as “Project Talent” and in others as “Project TALENT.” In this article, “Project Talent” is used, to be consistent with the majority of original use and to avoid any confusion with those groups or organizations that use “TALENT” as an acronym.Scientific papers citing Project Talent data
A comprehensive list of all scientific papers citing Project Talent data numbers far into the thousands and is beyond the scope of this article. A sample is provided below. Of note, despite the fact that decades have passed since the last data was collected in the study, the uniqueness of the data is shown in that it is still being cited in peer-reviewed scientific literature published in 2009.- The identification, development, and utilization of human talents, studies of a complete age group: age 15; Shaycoft, Marion F., University of Pittsburgh, Project Talent Office, 1963.
- The American High School Student, Flanagan, John C. et al., University of Pittsburgh, Project Talent Office, 1964.
- Implications of Project Talent for the Armed Forces, Dailey, J.T., Presented at the Meetings of the American Psychological Association, September, 1964.
- Progress toward the goals of Project Talent, University of Pittsburgh, U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education, Bulletin, 1965, no. 4.
- Birth Order and College Attendance, Bayer, A.E., Journal of Marriage and Family, 28(4), 480-484, 1966.
- One-year follow-up studies. Flanagan, John C., et al., University of Pittsburgh, Project Talent Office, 1966.
- Birth Order and Intelligence, Journal of Social Psychology, 76, 199-206, 1968.
- Career Development of Girls During the High School Years, Astin, H.S., Journal of Counseling Psychology, 15, 536-540, 1968.
- Dropouts: In High School and After High School, Combs, J., Cooley, W. W., American Educational Research Journal, 5(3), 343-363, 1968.
- Present and Future Supply of Registered Nurses, Altman, S.H., United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Washington D.C., 1971, ERIC documentation Reproduction Service No. 064 514.
- The First Fifteen Years of Project Talent: Implications for Career Guidance, Flanagan, J. C., Vocational Guidance Quarterly, 22, 8-14, 1974.
- Are There Unusually Effective Schools? Klitgaard, R. E., Hall, G. R., Journal of Human Resources, 10(1), 90-106, 1975.
- Estimates of the Determinants of Men's and Women's Economic Success, Abrams, D.L. et al. Presented at the Meeting of the American Educational Research, Association, New York, NY, April 1977.
- The Effect of Public Policies on the Demand for Higher Education, Bishop, J.H., Journal of Human Resources, 12(3), 285-307, 1977.
- Long-term Consequences for Children Born to Adolescent Parents, Card, J.J., American Institutes for Research, Palo Alto, CA, 1978.
- Perspectives on Improving Education: Project Talent’s Young Adults Look Back, Flanagan, J. C., Praeger, New York, 1978.
- Who Gets Ahead? The Determinants of Economic Success in America, Jencks, C., Basic Books, New York, 1979.
- The Earnings Effect of Black Matriculation in Predominantly White Colleges, Burnim, M.L., Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 33(4), 518-524, 1980.
- Changing Attitudes Toward Marriage and Single Life, Thornton, A., Freedman, D., Family Planning Perspectives, 14(6), 297-303, 1982.
- The Case Against the SAT, Crouse, J., Trusheim, D., University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1988.
- Differential Educational/Vocational Expectations as a Function of Contrasting Mathematical, Spatial-Mechanical, and Verbal Ability Profiles: A Longitudinal Analysis of Project Talent. Lubinski, D. Presented at Division C, American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA, April, 1995.
- Building a Scientific Community: The Need for Replication, Schneider, B., Teachers College Record, 106(7), 1471–1483, 2004.
- Intelligence-Personality Associations Re-Considered: The Importance of Distinguishing Between the General and Narrow Dimensions of Intelligence, Reeve, C., Myer, R., Bonaccio, S. Intelligence, 34(4), 387-402, 2006.
- Science Needs Kids With Vision; Holden, Constance. Science, 325(5945), 1190–1191, 2009.