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Our History

Wonderlic Personnel Test

A pioneer in the field of Industrial Psychology, Eldon F. Wonderlic was one of the first to develop a short-form test of cognitive ability, The Wonderlic Personnel Test (WPT). His analyses, in cooperation with Carl Hovland, selected the most effective test questions and organized them in a manner that dramatically reduced testing time while maintaining validity and reliability. This shortened test was less intimidating for job applicants and more efficient for employers.

In 1937, E.F. Wonderlic began distributing the WPT from his apartment in Chicago and later from his homes in Glencoe and Northfield, Illinois. Test sales were primarily based on one personnel executive recommending it to another. This word of mouth endorsement spread and the volume of tests administered rapidly grew.

As Household Finance Corporation’s first Director of Personnel, E.F. Wonderlic promoted the scientific analysis of job applicant abilities as a continuing business practice. Results of his studies were published in the Journal of Applied Psychology (1939) and by the National Industrial Conference Board (1948).

During the Second World War, the WPT was used by the Navy in the selection of candidates for pilot training and navigation. Wonderlic himself applied his specialized background to the problems of employee placement and training during war time production at Douglas Aircraft Corporation.

In 1950, Wonderlic published the first normative study of job applicant test scores.

The 1960s and 1970s

In 1960, a second nationwide normative study of job applicants was completed and set the precedence for a series of decennial studies that continue today. With the establishment of E.F. Wonderlic & Associates, Inc. in 1961, daily management of the test publishing was passed to the next generation, Eldon’s son Charles F. Wonderlic. ‘Chuck’ Wonderlic soon expanded the range of products and services offered by adding the Hay Battery, clerical and psychomotor tests, and hiring forms and procedures.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the civil rights movement raised the concern for potential bias in pre-employment testing. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 provided legal requirements for employers to avoid discrimination based on race, national origin, or religion and set up the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce these laws. Unfortunately, many employers did practice racial preferences in their hiring and promotion of employees, and some of these employers also used pre-employment testing, including the Wonderlic Personnel Test.

Legal action against employers in the late 1960s and early 1970s found many guilty of unfair employment practices. At the same time, differences in scoring patterns on pre-employment tests by race and national origin came to be regarded as indications of unfair bias in test content. As a result, traditional test validation studies were expanded to include ‘differential’ validity, the analysis of validity by racial and ethnic subgroups.

In 1970 and 1972 Wonderlic published the next decennial study of job applicant test scores, this time by job title, by race and national origin, studies that remain today as the most comprehensive studies of their kind. These studies have provided a rich resource for researchers examining the questions of test fairness, bias, and validity. The Wonderlic studies, together with studies from government and academic researchers, have conclusively demonstrated that the Wonderlic Personnel Test specifically, and professionally developed cognitive ability measures in general, are not biased against any racial group or nationality and are broadly valid as measures of employee job performance potential.

Football and “The Wonderlic”

No one knows for certain who first used the WPT to forecast performance as a football player. Nevertheless, one of the earliest and most enthusiastic users was Tom Landry of the Dallas Cowboys. Coach Landry found that WPT scores were related to learning the team playbook and to adaptability.

Players who exercise greater options, from week to week and from play to play, need to score higher. Certainly, the WPT has no relationship to how fast a player can run or how accurately a player can pass the ball. Yet, each player must run and pass as part of a team, and individual players become a team through their training grounded by their team playbook. How well a player will learn the playbook and adapt within the scope of the team is forecast by the WPT. Of course, this is true for any team, in any workplace.

Trade and Technical Schools Admissions Testing

In the 1980s, postsecondary trade and technical schools were looking for a way to ensure that the students they admitted into training programs were capable of succeeding on the job after training. These for-profit businesses had built relationships with the local employers that hired their graduates, and it was these business owners that recommended schools use the same test that students would face when they applied for a job, the Wonderlic Personnel Test.

Trade and technical schools educate many adults who may not have taken a test in years. The brevity and the accuracy of the test made the WPT a natural choice. Wonderlic responded to this new market by creating educational forms of the WPT called the Scholastic Level Exam (SLE).

In 1989, Wonderlic published a study called Admissions Testing in Vocational & Technical Training Schools which reported the findings of several validity studies and set appropriate SLE minimum scores by program of study. The American Council on Education approved the SLE as a valid predictor of vocational training success and the U.S. Department of Education approved the test for Title IV “Ability-to-Benefit” (ATB) testing.

Wonderlic published a new test, the Wonderlic Basic Skills Test, in 1994, to meet the revised requirements for ATB testing and in 1996 the U.S. Department of Education adopted much of Wonderlic’s ATB program procedures in their new regulations.

Today, thousands of private and public postsecondary schools in the U.S. and Canada use the SLE and Wonderlic Basic Skills Test (WBST) for student admissions and ATB decisions.

The 1980s and 1990s

Clinical Psychologists working with stroke patients needed to measure intelligence regularly during the recovery process and traditional tests were too long and cumbersome. In 1981, C. B. Dodrill published a study in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychologists finding the WPT as an accurate measure of full scale adult intelligence. He published two subsequent studies that examined the long term reliability of the WPT as a brief measure of intelligence.

In 1983 and 1992 Wonderlic published additional decennial studies establishing the relationship of median job applicant score for a position to the minimum score for acceptable job performance.

Under the leadership of third-generation owner, Charles F. Wonderlic, Jr., Wonderlic grew rapidly and expanded the products and services it provided to clients.

With the development and publication of the Wonderlic Basic Skills Test in 1993–1994, Wonderlic tied test results directly to job requirements established by the U.S. Department of Labor in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) and subsequent O*Net system. It also was the first test developed by Wonderlic using the principals of Item Response Theory (IRT) to calibrate and score the tests.

Other tests added to the Wonderlic roster during this period included the Comprehensive Personality Profile (CPP), the Personal Characteristics Inventory (PCI), and the Entrepreneurial Quotient (EQ).

Technology Provides New Opportunity

With the emergence of the Internet and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) telephony, Wonderlic can now provide services to its clients in the areas of recruiting, development, and retention.

Two new products, PhonApp and WebApp, make it convenient and cost-effective to pre-qualify job seekers automatically by reducing staff time spent with unqualified candidates. Newspapers, radio, and television stations use these products to provide expanded services to their employment advertisers.

The telephone and web survey platform enable employers to gather candid opinions from new, current and exiting employees and use that information to plan for improvement and reduce turnover.

Our online 360° review platform provides a powerful method of gathering feedback from managers, peers and direct reports resulting in individual development plans and increased awareness of corporate expectations and goals.

Wonderlic Consulting

New technology allowed Wonderlic to build customized solutions for clients. Our Industrial/Organizational psychology professionals established consultative relationships with clients and the Wonderlic Consulting group was established.

Today, Wonderlic Consulting is involved in the onboarding process for all new Wonderlic clients, ensuring that each organization is using the correct assessments and minimum scores to meet their needs and to maximize the benefit of the Wonderlic products and services they choose.

A New Millennium

Wonderlic continues to meet the needs of our clients by adding to our line of products and services. We recently introduced the Wonderlic Productivity Index (WPI), and new forms of the WPT called the Wonderlic Personnel Test—Revised (WPT-R) which will be released on January 2, 2007.

In 2006, we will publish our latest decennial study of the WPT including a look at the trends revealed by comparing it to previous studies.

Wonderlic Online was released for client use in the summer of 2006. This Internet platform is at the heart of all Wonderlic services to our clients. It allows Wonderlic clients to manage their recruiting and selection processes from a single interface. Wonderlic Online is customized for each organization and each position. This integrated platform will deliver employee recruitment, selection, development and retention processes and information.

Wonderlic, Inc. is still a family-run business with a deep commitment to developing the strategic products, services and technologies to help our clients reach their goals. We think E.F. would be proud!