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Background Information and Overview

Skills and Aptitudes

The difference between tests for skills and tests for aptitudes is sometimes a matter of degree. Skills tests, also known as achievement tests, tend to measure recent learning and are closely tied to particular school/training subjects. Whereas the term aptitude refers to mental abilities that are rather stable entities, genetically and somatically determined to a large extent. Together with motivational and other factors aptitudes contribute greatly to the acquisition of skills. To give an example: Reading Maps is an important skill for pilots. And the aptitude that contributes probably greatest to a fast and reliable acquisition of that skill is Spatial Comprehension. Although individuals with subnormal Spatial Comprehension are not generally unable to learn reading maps, compared to pilots with a normal or even high level of aptitude they will need more training to perform that skill sufficiently and - especially under high work load - more quickly reach their limits with the consequence of a higher error rate and negative effects on situational awareness. Also, unfamiliar maps or map designs rather challenge or irritate individuals with a restrained spatial ability than persons without such a restriction.

 

Available Test Packages

Our test package 'Basic Skills' consists of three tests, English, Mathematics and Science. As a free bonus that comes with your purchase of these tests you have available two training tests for practice. The idea of this training is to give you an insight in what sort of problems you are going to encounter in the certificate test. Detailed feedback will help you identify specific problems and recommend solution methods or training strategies. Please refer to the detailed test descriptions to learn which psychological aspects and aptitudes we consider contributing factors to the achieved test results in these skill tests.

Our test package 'Basic Aptitudes' consists of three tests, Working Memory, Spatial Comprehension, and Time Sharing. As a free bonus that comes with your purchase of these tests you have available ten training tests for practice. Usually in tests like these a training (with the original test) yields significant increases in scores during the first approximately five runs. After these first training runs the scores tend to remain rather stable. In other words, the distribution of training results is asymptotical and the achieved level can be assumed as the individual maximum.

 

Effects and implications of test training

Skills are greatly susceptible to training - the basic idea of going to school (or flight training) in the first place! Although talent and motivation play a major role in skill acquisition, there is no reason to expect that if you are poor in maths, science, English, or aviation knowledge today, you still will be poor in these subjects next month after intensive training and rehearsal with the relevant tasks. Since the time restriction on our skills tests are rather weak once you have made yourself fully familiar with all types of problems and their solution there is a good chance that you achieve the maximum possible score during the certificate test.

For aptitudes the situation is different. Does an effect of training and rehearsal with a test of spatial comprehension (as an example of a basic mental aptitude) mean that this aptitude has actually improved? Scientific evidence rather indicates a stability of the underlying aptitude and explains the measured increase in test results with an increase in test-specific skills. In other words, training a spatial comprehension test improves your results in this specific test due to familiarization with the test's features but not your spatial ability in general. Then why do we offer this training in the first place if we consider it ineffective with respect to the underlying aptitude? We do so because we want to make sure the test results of various individuals have been produced on a comparable training level. And since we cannot ensure that all test takers have no experience at all before they do the actual test we rather ensure similar training levels by providing training material for all our test takers.

Doing so increases fairnes of testing conditions and greatly reduces the risk of interpreting differences in training level as differences in talent.

The other implication however is that it will be hard even for very talented test takers to achieve top results if they make no use of the available training options at all. Even though you may not have to use all ten training runs to reach your individual maximum we strongly advise you to perform at least four to five runs in order to be fully aware of all test demands and maximize your training effect ('cover the steep part of your learning curve').