Cognitive and Potential Assessment (COPAS)
Cognition is the process by which an individual acquires knowledge and understanding through thought, experience and the senses.
The cognitive process uses existing knowledge to generate new knowledge. Interested in reading more about the cognitive process? (opens in new tab). COPAS was developed as a cognitive measuring instrument that could serve the needs of the South African business community.

Advantages of COPAS in the South African context are:
- it is simple and practical to administer
- it covers the entire literate population
- it has no cultural loading
- it only relies on language during instructions but not in doing the
test
The purpose of COPAS is to measure the participant’s
- cognitive and mental ability
- training and development potential
- cognitive capacity
It consists of symbolic test-items and measures the candidate’s current mental ability, potential to develop and, eventual cognitive capacity if opportunity and cognitive stimulation are available.
The cognitive abilities COPAS measures include:
- Concept formation,
- Mental alertness,
- Logical thinking,
- Original thinking,
- Spatial relations,
- Insight,
- Problem solving.
The test has a very high reliability and has been approved by the Health Professions Council of South Africa.
StandardCOPAS can be effectively used on a grade 6 schooling level and COPAS v.2 on a grade 4 level. It takes about 40 minutes to complete. It must be interpreted by a qualified psychologist.