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At various times in its history, Scientology has attributed the OCA's authorship variously, first to Mary Sue Hubbard, wife of "Source", and then (after her prison term and their separation) to L. Ron himself; but in fact, the Oxford Capacity Analysis (OCA) was written by Ray Kemp, a Scientologist who was a former merchant seaman with no psychological training. Kemp plagiarised the test from Julia Salman's American Capacity Analysis, which in turn derives largely from the 1940s Johnson Temperament Analysis. (footnote 1) By the way, the name itself is misleading; the OCA has no connection with Oxford University.
Neither does Dr. Terino's claim of the OCA being "diabolically accurate", have any basis in fact. There is a fairly large body of work demonstrating its uselessness as anything but a recruiting tool for use by Scientology "body-routers".
To aid his official enquiry into Scientology in 1971, Sir John Foster (K.B.E., Q.C., M.P.) asked a group of eminent psychologists to visit British Scientology recruiting offices to take the OCA. The Working Party was composed of a clinical psychologist, a consultant in psychological selection, and a university lecturer in psychology, all members of the governing Council of the British Psychological Society (incorporated under Royal Charter in 1965) and distinguished experts in their field.
Here is a portion of the summary of Foster's report: (footnote 2)
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.
Oh, and with regard to Dr. Terino's admitted "poor marketing abilities" -- I hear that Scientology can help you with that. (footnote 3)
(1) Jon Atack's essays "Possible origins for Dianetics and Scientology", available at <http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/cos/comments/jaorigin.html>, and "The Total Freedom Trap", available at <http://www.mpikg-teltow.mpg.de/people/katinka/fishy/TFTrap.html>.
(2) Sir John G. Foster, K.B.E., Q.C., M.P., "Report of the Enquiry into the Practice and Effects of Scientology", Published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, December 1971, available at <http://www.demon.co.uk/castle/audit/foster.html>.
(3) Chris Owen, "L. Ron Hubbard's Guide to Ambulance Chasing, part 2", available at <http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/cos/essays/owen_ambulance2.html>.