Prognostication and language aptitude testing, 1925-62

During the 1930s, efforts were made in the USA and elsewhere to develop prognostic tests that would justify decisions to exclude unqualified students from high school foreign language classes. In the USA, after the second world war, USA government language programmes supported research in the assessment of language aptitude to improve selection techniques. While a study by one group of psychologists failed, later work by John B. Carroll and colleagues led to the development of usable language aptitude tests, and contributed to the understanding of the nature of language aptitude.