*This is a single installment in a larger series dedicated to examining some of the most popular, influential, and historically important personality testing models and assessment tools.
So far, our series has placed a focus on personality assessment tools. The Wonderlic Test would more accurately be called a cognitive assessment tool. However, like the personality assessment methods we’ve already discussed, the Wonderlic Test has been widely used as an employee evaluation and career development tool.
As with personality assessment tools like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the Five Factor Model (FFM), the Wonderlic Test is often used to help predict the suitability of a candidate for a given role or professional path. However, where the MBTI and FFM are designed to quantify personality for quick and easy evaluation, the Wonderlic Test is designed to quantify cognitive ability for quick and easy evaluation.
The Wonderlic Test has been in circulation for nearly a century, and has been adopted for use by some of the most recognizable brands and organizations in the world. This assessment tool is designed to measure cognitive ability, but as we will later discuss, it may also have some useful applications for understanding personality as well as predicting performance and behavior.
What is the Wonderlic Test?
The Wonderlic Test is a timed intelligence test designed to measure general cognitive ability. It has sometimes been characterized as a speed IQ test. The Wonderlic consists of 50 multiple-choice questions and moves randomly through different areas of intellect including mathematics, language comprehension, pattern recognition, logic, and problem-solving.
The test gives respondents 12 minutes to complete all 50 questions. This design places a simultaneous emphasis on speed and accuracy. Scoring is based directly on the number of correct answers given, with possible scores ranging from 0 to 50. A score of 20 is meant to indicate an individual of average intellect.
The test rose to popularity through the middle of the 20th century because of the simplicity of its design, the speed of its administration, and its unique ability to quantify an individual’s learning and problem-solving capabilities in a variety of hypothetical settings.
This latter capability is also a feature that differentiates the Wonderlic from traditional IQ tests. While these intelligence assessments typically focus on a narrower range of cognitive abilities, the Wonderlic Test is fashioned to evaluate a variety of mental skills that are seen as relevant to important behaviors like decision-making, learning, and critical thinking.
How Does the Wonderlic Test Work?
As noted above, the Wonderlic Test is designed to deliver a quick and clear measure of cognitive ability. It is therefore formatted to evaluate respondents on both speed and accuracy in a range of cognitive tasks. These tasks are meant to measure cognitive ability in several key areas such as:
- Verbal reasoning through tasks like analogies and reading comprehension;
- Quantitative reasoning through tasks like arithmetic and pattern recognition; and
- Logic through tasks like problem solving and inductive reasoning.
The Wonderlic Test is designed to be administered:
- Through 50 multiple choice questions;
- Within a time limit of 12 minutes;
- Where each correct answer is worth 1 point;
- And respondents are scored on a scale between 0 and 50 points;
- With a score of 20 indicating an average intellect..
The resulting score may be used to gauge an individual’s problem-solving ability, learning speed, and analytical thinking. The speed and brevity of the test make this less a measure of an individual’s knowledge or expertise, and more an indicator of how effectively the test-taker can think under pressure.
In fact, as we’ll discuss in the section below, it is this last feature that has accorded the Wonderlic a unique space in popular culture.
What is the origin story of the Wonderlic Test?
The Wonderlic Test may sound particularly familiar to sports fans. That’s because it had been used with particular visibility by the National Football League (NFL) for nearly 50 years. But long before its rise to gridiron fame, the Wonderlic Test was the invention of American psychologist and entrepreneur Eldon F. Wonderlic.
In 1936, Wonderlic set out to create a tool that could be used by a wide range of organizations to test the cognitive abilities of job applicants. The idea was to design something that could quickly, clearly, and accurately deliver an evaluation of an individual’s ability to solve problems and operate using reason. He introduced the first publicly available assessment tool in 1939.
The Wonderlic Test’s first practical applications were for some pretty noteworthy U.S. brands. In the early 1940s, companies like AT&T and Oscar Meyer leveraged the test to evaluate job candidates. Then with the onset of American involvement in World War II, the Wonderlic Test proved useful to the U.S. Armed Forces. The military began using the Wonderlic Test to help identify individuals with the quick thinking and cognitive abilities needed for pilot training and flight navigation.
The test gained rapidly in popularity in the middle of the 20th Century. Its proliferation was aided in no small part by the fact that Eldon Wonderlic actually gave his test away for free during its first two decades of use. Wonderlic believed that the data he could gather by giving away the test for free far outweighed the initial value of selling access. This proved a prescient decision, one that helped Wonderlic refine his testing instrument over time.
The Wonderlic Test and the NFL
Arguably though, nobody did more to solidify the credibility and popularity of the Wonderlic Test than the National Football League. In the 1970s, legendary Dallas Cowboys head coach Tom Landry began using the Wonderlic to predict player performance. While we can’t say for certain that the test was the reason for his success, Landry’s team did mint two Super Bowl winning teams that decade.
It also led to eventual league-wide adoption of the Wonderlic Test. For decades, the NFL used the Wonderlic Test as its primary tool for assessing the cognitive abilities of college prospects during the annual NFL Combine. NFL teams believed that the Wonderlic Test was a useful instrument for gauging the ability of prospects to handle the exceptionally high speed of the professional game and make intelligent decisions under intense pressure.
Not only did the test help teams to evaluate cognitive abilities of draft prospects, but there is some evidence that it could also be used to predict behavior. A 2016 study demonstrated that those who scored lower on the Wonderlic Test were more likely to experience legal and disciplinary issues during their football careers relative to high-scoring players.
In 2022, the NFL revised a number of its NFL Combine practices. Among its revisions, the league discontinued use of the Wonderlic Test. In our section critiquing the assessment tool, we’ll take a closer look at exactly why.
What are some other Real-World Applications of the Wonderlic Test?
The NFL’s use of the Wonderlic Test helped to cement its popularity for a wide range of practical applications. Among the most common, the Wonderlic Test is frequently used for:
- Pre-employment testing–providing employers with a measure of a candidate’s cognitive abilities, such as problem-solving, reasoning, and quick thinking;
- Educational admissions–assessing learning capabilities as well as diagnosing student learning needs; and
- Military recruitment–measuring intellectual abilities and helping to match candidates with specific technical, specialized, or leadership roles.
What Are the Common Critiques of the Wonderlic Test?
In spite of its popularity and widespread use, the Wonderlic Test does have some flaws. Like most IQ tests, it has been subject to some of the following critiques.
- Cultural Bias: Critics of IQ tests often point to the inherency of cultural bias. The Wonderlic Test is no different. Some have argued that the language and phrasing used in the test may favor individuals from certain cultural or socioeconomic backgrounds. Certain language and logical scenarios may be more familiar to individuals of certain backgrounds and experiences, and may therefore disadvantage some test-takers.
- Overemphasis on Speed: The Wonderlic Test is extremely brief by design. In fact, the test is actually designed so that only a very small percentage of test-takers can complete all 50 items in the allotted time. While this can be a way to measure speed and accuracy, it may reflect negatively on those with high cognitive function who think deeply, but more slowly. This means the scoring may offer an incomplete and even inaccurate assessment of cognitive ability for some test-takers.
- Lack of Depth: There is also an argument that the test’s brief length and multiple choice format may offer a shallow view of cognitive ability. This snapshot of ability may fail to assess individuals for qualities such as creativity, intuition or emotional intelligence. Thus, it may be limited as a predictor of real-world job performance.
To this last point, the NFL suspended use of the Wonderlic Test in 2022 because, ultimately, there was no real empirical evidence that test scores correlated to on-field performance. This, combined with the above-noted concerns regarding sociocultural bias, led the NFL to seek more practical and contextual ways of evaluating the cognitive abilities of draft prospects.
What is the Relevance of the Wonderlic Test Today?
Though the NFL no longer uses the Wonderlic Test, it is still widely used in a variety of real-world settings including for hiring, admissions, military assessment, and sports recruitment. In fact, with the rising costs of hiring and employment, the Wonderlic Test has proven an affordable and easily administered online pre-screening tool for many hiring companies. Indeed, regardless of its shortcomings, its emphasis on speed, efficiency, and simplicity have helped to keep the Wonderlic Test in circulation.
However, it’s important to note that the Wonderlic Test is only useful to a point. Even if we agree that Wonderlic is useful as a measure of cognitive ability, this measurement may have only limited utility in predicting job performance. As we’ve argued in the past, research holds that personality testing may be as strong, or stronger, a predictor of job performance than intelligence testing.
This underscores the importance of triangulating evidence from a wide variety of sources and assessments to make well-informed hiring and career development decisions. To find out how our Success Portraits Personality Tests (SPPT) can enhance the findings yielded by instruments like the Wonderlic Test, check out our illuminating discussion with SPPT creators Fred Switzer and Jo Jorgenson.