Talk:Oxford Capacity Analysis

Norwegian death

So I’ve been trying to clean up this article. I took this death out because it leaps out of nowhere. And it seems more like a claim against the abuses of Church of Scientology than of the test itself? Or am I missing something? 69.181.199.238 (talk) 01:51, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

On Friday the 28th of March 2008, Kaja Bordevich Ballo, daughter of Olav Gunnar Ballo, Norwegian parliament member and vice president of the Norwegian Odelsting, took a Church of Scientology Oxford Capacity Analysis test while studying in Nice. Her friends and co-inhabitants claim she was in good spirits and showed no signs of a mental break down, the report from the Church of Scientology said she was "depressed, irresponsible, hyper-critical and lacking in harmony". A few hours later she committed suicide by jumping from her balcony at her dorm room leaving a note telling her family she was sorry for not "being good for anything." The incident has brought forward heavy criticism against the Church of Scientology from friends, family and prominent Norwegian politicians. Inga Marte Thorkildsen, parliament member, went as far as to say "Everything points to the scientology cult having played a direct role in making Kaja choose to take her own life."

References

Copyright

Who owns the copyright in the test? I know the CoS/RTC claims it, but I understand it was highly disputed. We need more history - David Gerard 19:52, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

There is a 1955 copyright by Julia M. Lewis for a test manual: Library of Congress. Copyright Office (1957). Catalog of Copyright Entries: Books and Pamphlets, including Serials and Contributions to Periodicals : January-June 1955. U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 354. Copyright 1955 for "Manual of the American Personality Analysis" by Julia M. Lewis. --Marc Kupper|talk 21:17, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Uncited

Practically the whole article is uncited at all. Besides the obvious potential link to an RTC copyright of the symbol "OTC" almost all of the rest has no vaidations, the only possible course for a reader who wanted to understand would be to guess which external link went with which portion of the article. In addition, the critical portions of the article are full of biased sorts of words like "rigged," etc and don't state their point of view very well. And lastly, the recruitment use of the OCA is greatly magnified in this article and used as the main point of controversy. While its actual use (by experience) in the CoS is that you take an OCA before and after an action or series of CoS actions and then look at the measured results. Hardly mentioned at all. Why hasn't some Psychologist made a name for himself by disproving the OCA is bunk, that would be a link to post here. Terryeo 22:53, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Here is some study including a report on the scientific study of the OCA by psychologists on the nature and value of the OCA presented in Enquiry into the Practice and Effects of Scientology Report by Sir John Foster, K.B.E., Q.C., M.P. :

The usual procedure when a potential pre clear first presents himself to the Scientology organisations with a view to enrolment is to encourage him to take a "free personality test" called the "Oxford Capacity Analysis." This test has been investigated by a Working Party of the British Psychological Society, the leading scientific body in this field in the United Kingdom, incorporated by Royal Charter in 1965. The Working Party was composed of a clinical psychologist, a consultant in psychological selection, and a university lecturer in psychology, all members of the Society's Council and distinguished experts in their field. Each of them took the test at one or other of the Scientology shops in London and Edinburgh.

(115) HCO P/L of 2nd January 1965.

(116) HCO P/L of 20th November 1969.

130. The test consists of 200 written questions, to be answered "yes", "no" or "uncertain" (this may not be easy to do when the question, like question 152, is in the form "Do you rarely express your grievances?"). The members of the Working Party answered the questions in differently but pre-determined. random fashion (see below) which could not produce results of any significance: in fact, they should all have come out pretty average in all personality traits. The subsequent experience of one member of the Working Party follows in his own words:-

"In this particular case the inventory was deliberately responded to in a fashion designed to produce an unpredictable result. As each question was read the answer space was completed for the following question without reference to the content of either question. On any known inventory this procedure should produce a 'flat' profile, with few scores departing significantly from the mean. When the profile chart was presented on the second visit it showed extremely low scores on three traits; all save one or two were below the 'desirability' band. (The imprecision is due to the fact that, try as he might, the 'client' was not permitted to bring away the profile sheet). The staff member who had scored the inventory expounded the extreme scores with some urgency. He avoided questions on the meaning of the scales, dismissing as irrelevant the trait words at top and bottom; yet he invested the points on the scale with immense importance, almost of a charismatic nature. His patter continually referred to the inadequacies which the graph revealed - one point became 'failed purpose' and another 'loss', although these terms were never explained. He attempted to confirm his diagnosis of these poin1s on the graph by such leading questions as "Do you often fail to achieve what you set out to do?" and "Do you have difficulty making friends?" Affirmative answers to these questions (which were given readily) were, somehow, to be explained by the low scores and the interpretation put on them.

In the course of the session the following information was elicited from the Scientology staff member:

(i) The test was devised by "Oxford students, or the Oxford Dictionary people", he did not know which;

(ii) He did not understand the word 'percentile' - although it was he who brought the word into the discussion. He looked it up in the Concise Oxford Dictionary without success and decided it meant 'percentage'. He thereafter interpreted '90th percentile' as 90 per cent.

(iii) 'Most people' scored beyond the 'minus 90' point on the three traits being discussed

In general it was patent that this person had no notion what the test was, how it was designed, what it measured or what the scores meant. He had been trained to produce this ill-informed commentary which, to a gullible anxious person, might sound genuinely insightful. In fact he was pointing out to an unknown member of the public 'inadequate' facets of his personality shown up by an instrument which he did not understand.

In a second interview, immediately following on, the 'Registrar' explained the hierarchy of levels which could be attained by Scientology processing. He described the courses offered by the organisation to remedy the inadequacies shown up by the profile. All these courses would cost money and a probable minimum total of one hundred guineas was quoted to deal with the particular personality deficiencies shown up by the OCA."

131. The conclusions of the Working Party are summarised as follows:-

"The systematic quantification of personality variables is one aspect of psychometric testing .... All psychometric tests can be assessed in terms of their reliability and validity. "Reliability" implies that a test yields similar results under similar testing conditions. Various degrees of reliability can be attributed to a number of sources of error. In a properly constructed personality test the various effects of these sources of error are systematically assessed. "Validity" implies that a test measures what it claims to measure - i.e., that it is a valid measure of the characteristic it claims to quantify. A test may be reliable without being valid, but not vice versa. A known degree of reliability is crucial to the use of any psychometric test in a setting where its results are used with an individual case.

If a personality test is a reliable device, then a systematic approach to answering the questions should yield systematic variations in the conclusions derived from an analysis of the test scores. That this is a property of reliable tests may be assumed from a knowledge of formal test theory such as any person competent to assess the results of a psychometric test should possess. The members of the Working Party used this property of reliability of psychometric tests to assess the adequacy of the personality testing offered by the Scientologists, by submitting themselves to testing as 'clients' responding to the advertisements for free personality testing.

For the purpose of making their assessment of the status of the test, the members of the Working Party employed three different methods of responding to the test items when they themselves completed it:-

       (a) one member answered the questions at random, selecting the answer to be given before reading the question;

       (b) a second member employed a method in which the response was pre-determined regardless of the content of the question: if the final letter of the question was a consonant in the range "a" to "m", he answered "no"; if it was a consonant in the range "n" to "z" he answered "yes"; if it was a vowel, he answered "uncertain";

       (c) the third member used the reverse of this procedure, so that he answered "yes" where the second method produced the answer "no", and "no" where the second method produced the "yes" response. The "uncertain" response was given to the same questions as before. 

   This systematic variation in response styles would be expected to affect the resultant profiles. "Profiles" are an accepted manner of presenting the information derived from some types of personality test. A random method of response ((a) above) would be expected to produce scores close to the mean of scores obtained during the standardising of the test. Methods (b) and (c) should also result in profiles with low deviations from the mean scores; if such deviations occurred these two methods would be expected to produce different, if not complementary, profiles. The Working Party verified that on two accepted personality tests such systematic variations in answering did produce variations in profile pattern.

These variations in answering the questions did not seem to affect the Oxford Capacity Analysis as the three methods produced remarkably similar profiles, in which the scores on the first three scales were in an extreme position in the range marked "unacceptable" ... All profile results then rose into the "normal" or "desirable" range over the next 2-4 scales and showed a return to "unacceptable" over the remaining scales.

If these three systematically varied response styles had all produced "flat" profiles, with few scores departing greatly from the mean, then we would have considered that the Oxford Capacity Analysis could not be criticised on these grounds. But when each of two diametrically opposed methods of response produces the same extreme deviant scores as the other and as a third "random" response style, we are forced to a position of scepticism about the test's status as a reliable psychometric device.

It should be noted that the Oxford Capacity Analysis is not a personality test known in psychological circles; it is not distributed by reputable test agencies in this country; there is no research literature available about it, nor is it listed in the Mental Measurements Year Book which is internationally accepted as the authoritative source on psychometric devices. While any one of these points does not in itself indict a psychometric instrument, the failure of the Oxford Capacity Analysis to meet all of them does, in our opinion, constitute an extremely strong case for assuming it to be a device of no worth. The scientific value and useful nature of the profile apparently derived from completion of the Oxford Capacity Analysis must consequently be negligible. We are of the opinion that the Oxford Capacity Analysis and the profiles derived from its completion are constructed in such a manner as to give the appearance of being adequate psychometric devices, whereas, in fact, they totally fail to meet the normally accepted criteria.

Taking the procedure as a whole, one is forced to the conclusion that the Oxford Capacity Analysis is not a genuine personality test; certainly the results as presented bear no relation to any known methods of assessing personality or of scaling test scores. The booklet itself might produce genuine scores but these are not the

scores presented on the profile. The legend 'produced and edited by the Staff of the Hubbard Association of Scientologists International' which appears on the cover is totally inappropriate to a personality measure - such an instrument is not 'edited', it is developed through painstaking research. The validity of the OCA booklet itself is therefore in doubt.

No reputable psychologist would accept the procedure of pulling people off the street with a leaflet, giving them a 'personality test' and reporting back in terms that show the people to be 'inadequate', 'unacceptable' or in need of 'urgent' attention. In a clinical setting a therapist would only discuss a patient's inadequacies with him with the greatest of circumspection and support, and even then only after sufficient contact for the therapist-patient relationship to have been built up. To report back a man's inadequacies to him in an automatic, impersonal fashion is unthinkable in responsible professional practice. To do so is potentially harmful. It is especially likely to be harmful to the nervous introspective people who would be attracted by the leaflet in the first place. The prime aim of the procedure seems to be to convince these people of their need for the corrective courses run by the Scientology organisations."

132. A similar exercise was carried out independently by Dr. David Delvin, who reported the outcome in World Medicine (17). Again, I quote:-

"I settled down to the 'personality test'. This consisted of 200 questions of the type much favoured by women's magazines (Are you considered warm-hearted by your friends? Do you enjoy activities of your own choosing? Are you likely to be jealous? Do you bite your fingernails?).

Eventually, a young man took my answers away for "processing". When he returned, he was waving an impressive-looking piece of graph paper, around which were printed figures, symbols, and various bits of McLuhanistic jargon. Across the paper was drawn a line that looked something like the Boat Race course. This, the young man told me, was my personality curve.

The young man airily drew a ring round the area of Putney, and said that this represented "other people". A similar ring in the region of Barnes Bridge indicated "myself", while another drawn round Mortlake Brewery apparently represented "life". On the basis of all this, the young man gave me a 20-minute personality analysis, which mainly consisted of portentous-sounding pseudo-scientific neologisms ("You've got quite a bit of agity and you re moderately dispersed, but we can help you to standard tech.") He seemed bit vague about what these words actually meant.

At the end, he said to me impressively, "So you see. it's all very scientific - thanks to the fact that our founder is a man of science himself".

"Oh yes, very scientific indeed," I said.

(117) July 29th, 1969.

I hadn't the heart to tell him that his super-scientific system had failed to detect the fact that I had marked the "don't know" column against all 200 questions in the test."

133. It may be relevant to note that none of these observers at any stage had it suggested to him that Scientology was a religion.

131. I asked the Scientologists what claims they made for the Oxford Capacity Analysis, on what published evidence they were founded and what written instructions were given to persons who interpreted the tests. Mr. Gaiman answered:-

"As far as I have been able to discover, we don't make any particular claims about the Oxford Capacity Analysis.

All I say about the test is that it is a reasonably reliable test for measuring individual personality.

I don't know if you have received a paper from the British Psychological Society by three of its members who went to our premises in London deliberately to make a mockery of the tests by giving random answers. I would certainly concede that it is possible to make a mockery of them. Newspaper plants have also proved that it is possible to make a mockery out of auditing. It does not discredit the tests, or auditing, for honest men who are genuinely seeking a result."

He did not mention any published evidence, or the existence of any instructions.

Vivaldi 08:07, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Caroline Letkeman has put online the HCO Policy Letter "Evaluation Script". This policy is clearly about recruiting people no matter what are their results. We could integrate this reference in the article. Raymond Hill 14:36, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

This violates not using a primary source and thus violates the Wiki guidelines. I could also state my opinion giving my credentials, however, this is not what Wikipedia is all about. Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research Streamlight 12:52, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

This isn’t the first time Antaeus Feldspar has changed my edits with no reason given. My point is correct, this doesn’t qualify to be in this article as it violates Wiki guidelines on primary source. Streamlight 11:39, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

IQ silliness

I've read through the OCA, and I've taken a whole slew of both personality tests (MMPI being one of the better ones) and IQ tests (Raven tests seem to be quite good for normalizing out cultural and verbal bias), and, having never done a scored OCA, I find it absolutely jaw-dropping that an OCA would even *attempt* to rank IQ. Can we get a source for the phrase "listing your supposed IQ", because the OCA questions don't have *anything* *whatsoever* to do with IQ, or "g". For example, question 3: Browse a train schedule? Well, a person with low g, low IQ, might not realize that memorizing such things might help them in the future, a person with a moderately normal IQ might memorize this info, and a person with even an *higher* IQ could rapidly glance at the schedule, and never ever look at it again, because rather than learn the *times* of a train/route, they have learned the calculations to create the times of a train/route. Same thing with a dictionary. Low g/IQ people generally don't use them, medium and normal g/IQ people memorize them, high g/IQ people just ignore and/or skip them, and learn the rules of the language(s) in use. Can we get some cites on both (a) whether or not the OCA actually gives a (lol) IQ result, as well as (b) any cites on how somebody could claim that such messed-up, irrational, questions, could even produce such a result? Ronabop 08:04, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

"I find it absolutely jaw-dropping that an OCA would even *attempt* to rank IQ" Ronabop. You are correct. The OCA itself doesn't measure the IQ, however the IQ results come from an additional test called the "Novis Mental Ability Test". This test is often given along with the OCA (its a short 30 minute test) and its results are often added to the the OCA results page. This probably needs to be clarified in the article. Vivaldi (talk) 14:13, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Here's the package deal offered by the Church of Scientology Orange County. Interesting because I thought the PPA was just the rebranded OCA from MasterTech (aka WISE). I believe that it's Novis as in Homo Novis, since the Church of Spiritual Technology seems to own the copyrights to the test forms at least. [1] AndroidCat 14:42, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, my result sheet has three checkbox-lookalikes which are labelled "IQ". And I did only do the OCA, not any other test. --Drahflow (talk) 04:48, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

package deal

Apparently The "package deal" link above requires to allow the instalation of an additional java application! This is not usual. Beware!

206.108.168.141 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:56, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Chris Owen's study of OCA

I do not believe that Chris Owen's self-published written works should be used as the sole source of informaton in an encyclopedia article about anyone or anything other than himself per the guidelines of Reliable Sources and the policies of WP:V. I believe we should remove any claims sourced to Chris Owens from the article. Chris is not a notable person, nor a recognized professional journalist or professional researcher. While I admire Chris for his work and I personally respect his research. I do not believe that it meets the requirements for wikipedia. I would like to see others opinions about this. Vivaldi (talk) 12:09, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Other than the external link, where is Chris referenced? AndroidCat 18:54, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Note the date of Vivaldi's comment. The piece was referenced as a source in an earlier version of the article, but not in the current version. -- ChrisO 21:00, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Use of templates?

Can we perhaps stop using the {{cquote}} templates? There are a number of reasons not to use them, but I think the biggest and most immediately relevant is that it looks to certain people as if these quotes are being emphasized to push a POV, and it starts a whole arms race of abusing formatting for POV reasons. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:56, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

POV check

I think this article is extremely biased, especially in the "How the OCA is used by Scientology" secion. It seems to be leaning towards the belief that Scientology is false, for example saying that the tests are designed so that Scientology is always needed.--Orthologist 13:58, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this is against the tide of Wikipedia's policy, but sometimes I say political correctness be damned. Many articles are so self-conscious of NPOV as to just read like pure silliness. I'm sorry if it offends someone, but these tests are recruiting tools, point blank; and the article sites credible mainstream sources that say so. We do not need to present the opposing viewpoint in an equal light if the opposing view comes from lunatics on the fringe of anything that could be considered remotely scientific. --Wilford Nusser 06:25, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

But, this is *exactly* how Scientology operates. The tests are designed to do two things: (1) screen for people who may qualify as new recruits (gullible enough to fall for (2)), and (2) provide a "scientific proof" that you have "problems" which only Scientology can help you with. The most insidious thing about it is that they do not even try to persuade you. They let the "facts" speak. Even if you are not convinced, the impression that you take home is that it was "pretty harmless", nobody tried to coax you into some sect.

The concept is very similar to a "lie detector" audit (the e-meter is nothing else, conceptually). There is no evidence whatsoever that polygraph is able to detect lies. At the very best, a relative measure of stress can be assessed (assuming the subject does not cheat, which is easy). However, the tested subject is given the impression that the procedure is really able to detect lies (the pre-test interview often serves for that purpose). At some point, the subject is told that he has been caught lying regarding the charges/alibi/whatever, for the odd chance that he will break down. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.35.159.47 (talk) 12:49, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

In what way is it "false"? The word false indicates that there is a truth and a lie, and that the "false" thing is by definition a lie. Practically everyone who has examined this who does not have links to Scientology have concluded that the OCA test always shows at least one, normally more, areas where the testee is told that Scientology is the best way to help them; in what manner is the article false in stating that the OCA is primarily used in Scientology recruitment? Whisperwolf (talk) 23:26, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

"Invariably Negative"

According to personal experience, they are indeed not invariably negative. I only applied once so far, but most scores were - according to the graph - "acceptable in all conditions" and only a single one was "needing urgend attention", a point on which, surprisingly, the guy talking to me didn't dwell long. Could they have changed the evaluation procedure in the meantime? Hence the word "invariably" should not be used in the article, I propose "most of the time". --Drahflow (talk) 04:57, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I do not accept this argument. Invariably negative, to me, indicates that the bulk of test results have a negative result or aspect, rather than the bulk of categories within the test are negative. As it has been discovered by numerous organisations, this is indeed the case, and even Drahflow has to accept that his test falls into this category. Invariably at least one of the results is negative, and Scientology is always recommended to "correct" this. I argue that the wording should stand. Whisperwolf (talk) 23:26, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Dissagree with you on that Whisperwolf. If we examine the word "invariably" it is "not varying." That is, "always." It is not a good word to be using in this case Tim.thelion (talk) 16:31, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Language in the Criticism and Controversy Section

"This time the investigation was done for a prosecutor attacking a local branch of Narconon, the church's drug rehab offshoot" - given the potentially-contentious subject matter in question here, the wording "a prosecutor attacking a local branch of..." seems kind of suspect, for reasons I think should be obvious. Attacking has some very specific connotations, especially given that the Church of Scientology's longstanding beliefs about being under attack from various governmental authorities are pretty well established. Even if it was not deliberate, it seems to make the research conducted by Gudmund Smith out to be a targeted hit piece, potentially reducing its apparent credibility. At the same time, from my experiences trying to edit anything other than individual ethnic slurs thrown in the middle of sentences for no reason, I'm a little hesitant to actually change anything myself for fear of receiving five hundred words on why I'm wrong by noon. So I thought I'd just throw this up on the talk page and see if anyone else agrees with my reading of this. Autotechnica (talk) 15:50, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

Another source

There is a section titled "Self-Presentation at Recruitment: The "Oxford Capacity Analysis"." in the paper:

• Beit-Hallahmi, Benjamin (2003). "Scientology: Religion or racket?". Marburg Journal of Religion. 8 (1). doi:10.17192/mjr.2003.8.3724.

  ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 18:51, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

July 2024

The Oxford Capacity Analysis profile is a personality test that helps one point out their strengths and weaknesses so they know what they would like to address in life. The Oxford Capacity Analysis was derived with Oxford and L Ron Hubbard many years ago, it was a cooperative venture and there is no scientific proof disproving the accuracy and usefulness of the OCA — Preceding unsigned comment added by Clayteepie (talk • contribs) 23:44, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Actually, the OCA test is a tool used by the Church of Scientology to recruit new people and sell them a book or sign them up for a small course. There was no "Oxford" involved in the creation of this tool. There is zero scientific proof it provides the testee with any useful information about their personality, nor is there any scientific proof that any of the courses sold by the Church of Scientology improves the lives of people who take such courses.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 00:57, 9 July 2024 (UTC)