Vocational Terminology: Employment Testing

“Aptitude”

A combination of abilities and other characteristics whether native or acquired, that are indicative of an individual’s ability to learn or develop proficiency in some particular area if appropriate education or training is provided. The following aptitudes can be measured:

• Intelligence (G) – General learning ability. The ability to “catch on” or understand instructions and underlying principles; the ability to reason and make judgments. (U.S. Department of Labor, 1970)
• Verbal Aptitude (V) – The ability to understand meaning of words and use them effectively. The ability to comprehend language, to understand relationships between words and to understand meanings of whole sentences and paragraphs. (U.S. Department of Labor, 1970)
• Numerical Aptitude (N) – Ability to perform arithmetic operations quickly and accurately. (U.S. Department of Labor, 1970)
• Spatial Aptitude (S) – Ability to think visually of geometric forms and to comprehend the two- dimensional representation of three-dimensional objects. (U.S. Department of Labor, 1970)
• Form Perception (P) – Ability to perceive pertinent detail in objects or in pictorial or graphic material. Ability to make visual comparisons and discriminations and see slight differences in shapes and shadings of figures and widths and lengths of lines. (U.S. Departments of Labor, 1970)
• Clerical Perception (C) – Ability to perceive pertinent detail in verbal of tabular material. Ability to observe differences in copy, proofread words and number, and to avoid perceptual errors in arithmetic computation. (U.S. Departments of Labor, 1970)
• Motor Coordination (M) – Ability to coordinate eyes and hands or fingers rapidly and accurately in making precise movements with speed. (U.S. Department of Labor, 1970)
• Finger Dexterity (F) – Ability to move the fingers and manipulate small objects with the fingers rapidly or accurately. (U.S. Department of Labor, 1970)
• Manual Dexterity (M) – Ability to move the hands easily and skillfully. Ability to work with the hands in placing and turning motions. (U.S. Department of Labor, 1970)

Department of Labor “Types of Work”

• Light work – Exerting up to 20 pounds of force occasionally and/or up to 10 pounds of force frequently, and/or a negligible amount of force constantly (2/3 or more of the time) to move objects. Physical demand requirements are in excess of those for sedentary work. Even though the weight lifted may be only a negligible amount, a job should be rated light work: (1) when it requires walking or standing to a significant degree; (2) when it requires sitting most of the time but entails pushing and/or pulling of arm or leg controls; and/or (3) when the job requires working at a production rate pace entailing the constant pushing and/or pulling of materials even though the weight of those materials in negligible. (U.S. Department of Labor, 1991)”
• Medium work – Exerting 20 to 50 pounds of force occasionally, and/or 10 to 20 pounds of force constantly to move objects. Physical demands are in excess of those for light work. (U.S. Department of Labor, 1991)”
• Heavy work – Exerting 50 to 100 pounds of force occasionally, and/or 25 to 50 pounds of force frequently, and/or 10 to 20 pounds of force constantly to move objects. Physical demand requirements are in excess of those for medium work. (U.S. Department of Labor, 1991)”

“Job Analysis”

The gathering, evaluating, and recording of accurate, objective, and complete job data. Job analysis identifies and describes, in a systematic and comprehensive but succinct manner: What the worker does in terms of activities or function; How the work is done–the methods, techniques, or processes involved, and the work devices used; Results of the work-the goods produced, services rendered, or materials used; Worker characteristics-the skills, knowledge, abilities, and the adaptations needed to accomplish the tasks involved. It also identifies the context of the work in terms of environmental and organizational factors and the nature of the worker’s discretion, responsibility, or accountability. (U.S. Department of Labor, 1982)
 

“Labor Market”

• Labor market access (LMA) – A method for determining the employability and loss of access to the labor market of an individual with a disability. It utilizes job matching to determine residual functional capacity, lists nature and extent of disabling conditions, and uses transferability process to adjust preinjury level of functioning to post-injury level on all relevant factors. The rehabilitation professional then identifies the percentage of jobs available to the individual before and after the injury. The loss of labor market access represents the percentage of vocational disability for the client. (Weed & Field, 1990)
• Labor market information (LMI) – Current data that project the availability and growth or decline of jobs or occupational areas(clusters) within a specific geographic region (e.g., city, state, region, or nation). LMI also includes specific job titles, salaries, job responsibilities, requirements, and demands within specific businesses and companies as well as within general occupational definitions. (P.J. Leconte, personal correspondence, July 15, 1991)
• Labor market survey (LMS) – A systematic analysis, based on an individual’s transferable skills and residual functional capacity, of a given hob or jobs within a geographic area with respect to hiring trends, salary levels, employment availability, growth potential, and future outlook. (Hursh & Kerns, 1989)

“Worker Functions”

The functioning of the worker in relationship to a specific set of tasks. It is also a combination of the highest function which the worker performs in relation to data, people, and things, and the level of complexity of the job-worker situation as referred to in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. (Fry & Botterbusch, 1988, edited 1993)