Otis-Lennon
February 4th, 2012

The OLSAT was developed by Arthur Otis, Ph.D. and Roger Lennon, PhD.  Dr. Otis is famous for his intelligence tests which use the multiple choice format. Similarly, Dr. Otis developed a group-administered test for his doctoral course in 1917, these tests are known as the Army Alpha for the educated and the Army Beta for the untaught. From this course, the Otis-Lennon School Abilities Test was developed.

Dr. Otis was able to utilize the multiple choice test formats which are considered to be time and cost effective method of testing.  These multiple choice, timed and group administer testing method became the forerunner of the Otis-Lennon tests. Correspondingly, he earned the distinction of developing the US army’s Army Alpha test for the military recruits during World War I.

Dr. Otis also was one of the foremost test contributor and test editor for World Book Company which later became a section of the Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Dr. Lennon was the head of the testing division of Harcourt and later Senior Vice President of the publishing company and, in fact, the first edition of the Otis-Lennon test was published in 1979 by Harcourt. Subsequent Otis-Lennon editions were published in 1982, 1988 and 1995. It is now on its eight edition and still one of the most preferred aptitude tests nationwide.