Mechanical Aptitude Test MAT-3C

Development

Ramsay Corporation's Mechanical Aptitude Test (MAT) was professionally-developed in 2004 as a short-measure of mechanical aptitude with reduced adverse impact based on gender and race. The MAT has been found to be highly correlated with other measures such as the Wiesen Test of Mechanical Aptitude (WTMA) and the Bennett Test of Mechanical Comprehension. The MAT should be useful in selecting apprentices, trainees, or other candidates who are learning and performing production and maintenance job activities.

Great care was taken in selecting questions that relate to everyday items and common knowledge to reduce adverse impact (early data collection reveals this test to be very gender friendly). The following areas are the primary focus of the questions:

Household Objects
Work - Production and Maintenance
School - Science and Physics
Hand and Power Tools

Ramsay Corporation felt the need to develop the MAT to address several issues in the realm of mechanical aptitude testing. Specifically, the MAT fills the following voids:

The need for an updated measure of mechanical aptitude.
The need for a short and user-friendly measure of mechanical aptitude.
The need for a measure without reference to city/rural or gender-based content.
The need for a measure appropriate to the context of 21st century life.

Validity

In order to ensure this test can measure the ability to learn and perform production and maintenance jobs, the MAT underwent criterion-related validation studies for both maintenance and production applications. This test has been used in 8 content validation studies and 2 criterion-related validation studies.

It was found to be significantly (.48 p< .01) correlated with GPA for a sample of mechanical technicians in a technical college.
Scores on the MAT were found to correlate (.40 p<.01) with a measure of mechanical knowledge.
In a study of production workers, the Mechanical Aptitude Test was found to be significantly correlated with "ability to troubleshoot equipment" and "ability to enter and receive information using competency".
The MAT was shown to have a significant predictor-criterion relationship to success and manager ratings.

Additionally, validation studies were completed to determine the construct validity of this test and was found to be significantly correlated with scores on the WTMA (Wiesen Test of Mechanical Aptitude) and the Bennett Test of Mechanical Comprehension.