View source for CofS stole the OCA test

''From Kemp's Column in IVy 22 by Ray Kemp, USA''


== Putting it to the test ==


POSSIBLY ONE of the least understood pieces of technology that has been within the framework of scientology, as well as many earlier studies of humanity, has been the creation of and the use of tests, so as to measure results.
 
In the field of psychology in general, among the most commonly used tests circa 1950, were the Minnesota Multiphasic, and the Johnson Temperament Analysis, the Stamford Binet and the Kleige, etc., plus a whole battery of IQ tests stemming mainly from studies in and just after WW1 (1918). As far as I am aware, it was Adler who first started trying to measure the personality, based on his theory of "The Will to Power", meaning the effort of the person to attune itself to the winning or "powerful" archetype.


== History in scientology ==


When L. Ron Hubbard wanted to measure the results of Dianetics he used these tests, and a chapter on this activity is to be found in his earlier works. These tests were time consuming and bulky, and were somewhat off target to be able to actually define what he wanted to define. The Johnson Temperament Analysis was closest.
 
Julia Lewis, who had been trained in Psychometry (testing) reworked a test based on the JTA, I believe at Hubbard's request, and developed the American Personality Analysis, which was then used as a stable datum for dianetic results.
 
At that time I had been working on a subject called Human Engineering and had studied Adler, while in the Royal Navy and on a tour of duty, experimenting with what you now know as the angled carrier deck, and the mirror deck landing lights, among other things, and involving also studying such matters as attention span, communication/reaction time and so forth.
 
Discussing this with Ron, along with Herbie and Jack Parkhouse at our home one evening, Ron brought up the matter of the APA, stating that the test results did not seem to fit the observed results on students and pcs in London. I pointed out that a personality test is only as valid as the testee's personality meets the original stand entered into the test set up. Put very simply, an American personality is not the same as a British, German, French, or any other cultural group's personality.
 
Ron asked me whether it would be possible to write a test that was more general in nature, and would enable him to see in the test what he was looking for. He also wanted it to be in the same general format as the APA and if possible to have both tests interchangeable in the matter of what he wanted to see as information. Quite a task. As a result of quite a few months works, I eventually devised the Oxford Capacity Analysis (OCA). Note that it did not test personality, but rather the capacity of any person with respect to various traits and syndromes.


== Syndrome ==


Definition of syndrome: any combination of two or more traits which, when taken as a whole, have meaning.
 
Example: A person with no action level but very depressed is not likely to commit suicide, but a very depressed person who also shows a high action level and a high tendency to spur of the moment activity is much more a suicide risk.
 
The OCA was copyrighted in my name by Ron and was by agreement released to the HASI [Hubbard Association of Scientologists International] and HCO [Hubbard Communications Office], (Ron's organizations), for use.
 
The first article on testing, written by me, and the first bulletins also written by me, appeared in the British magazine 'Certainty.' The original printing of the booklets also had my name on them but subsequent issues had "HCO Staff" as the author and, much later, had L. Ron Hubbard listed as the author.
 
One of he most important aspects of devising such a test or inventory is to not allow the testee to predict what it is one is looking for, and to put in check questions that show this up. Another factor is the weighting of certain questions differently from others.
 
It must be understood that, just as the APA is not merely a rework of the JTA, the OCA was not a rewrite of the APA. They are comparable, but not the same.
 
This simple fact, not understood by the testing department of many of LRH's organizations has caused much grief and confusion, with untrained personnel administering the test and using APA scoring sheets for OCA questions and vice versa.
 
Another idiocy that crept in was under the guise of 'economy', when people ran out of test materials, they simply took the last sheet of whatever they had and xeroxed a new set. The trouble with that is that after five generations of xeroxing, the answer sheets no longer fit the platens, and are just about one question off line.
 
The point is that testing is a very accurate, technical action and playing fast and loose with the documentation does not work.


== Present time ==


Another aspect not fully understood is that the resultant graph is NOT a graph of that person's personality; it is a picture of what the testee considers is the way others view him, and to which he agrees.
 
Anyway, in 1959, when we started to reach in the area of make 'Clears', Ron and I discussed again the whole matter of testing. "How do you test a Clear?" Ron asked. My immediate answer was "When he goes clear we tatto a 'C' on his forhead -- when he makes OT he unmosks it." However, we never put that into practice.
 
What I did was to rework the test into the 1959 edition, which does have questions that a clear would answer differently, and I devised a scoring system suggested to me by Philip Phillips, based upon reciprocal math so that the highest score became a zero. This reduced the strain on marking, and mostly, eliminated addition errors.
 
Since I was in USA by this time, my copyright was file at the US Copyright Office as an update of the earlier edition.
 
In 1970 I went on a tour of various countries' orgs, examining their testing department, and was horrified at the scene. Tests had been wrongly translated, questions had been changed "Because some questions contradict others", or "We changed that because it made people think about the answer", and I reported this to Ron when I got to Flag.
 
He was very upset and asked me to write the definitive book on testing, which I did, with editing help from Tom Morgan, my then Organizing Officer. This book, "Scientometric Testing", went out to many Franchise organizations, but caused havoc in the Church Organizations who protested and as a resul succeeding in getting Issue Authority banning the book.
 
Realize that by this time Ron had lost control of his whole organization anyway, and was being fed just what information the new management wanted him to have.


== Situation now ==


Since I became no longer connect to the Church, which I consider to be spritually bankrupt, I have seen such a mess of changes in what they now call the "Standard OCA Test" and another version that a front group were selling to industry under the name, I believe, Ullman, that I can tell you withou hesitation that I wouldn't trust any current test from that source.

A few monts ago I received a phone call from a London newspaper, asking me about the OCA, which the newspaper said was being used "all over London" as a gimmick to persuade people to buy courses and that there had been consumer complaints filed.

I told the reporter, truthfully, that I had no idea what 'they' were doing these days, and I explained the history, purpose and use of the testing as laid down by Ron himself, (and I do not mean the later bulletins put out under or over his name by others.)

The reporter asked me why I was not suing the Church for plagiarism or copyright infringement, and my reply was, and is, that the current test as put out by the Church organizations, under any name, is so far removed from the original that only the name is left."

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[[category:History]]
[[category:take over]]