TESTS OF INTELLIGENCE

Evening Star, Issue 18035, 1 August 1922, Page 7

TESTS OF INTELLIGENCE

AN AID TO EDUCATION. ADDRESS BY INSPECTOR I ROBERTSON. i A most Interesting and entertaining Igjdrees on ‘ The Measurement o! In tell ifeem»* •was given by Inspector Robertson in the YiM-C.A. last evening to a meeting add trader the auspices of the Women {Teachers’ Association, About forty women teochers attended, and there were also jaresent by invitation about a dozen male' teachers. Mnnn Robertson, the president of the Association, was in the Chair, and in welfeoirdng the speaker of the evening said that, as the subject was receiving a great deal of prominence just now, they as teachers wore deeply interested in it. It frrad been of great benefit in other countries, and, it was hoped, would help them jla ibeir work hare. Inspector Robertson said that of recent ! Team they: hod frequently seen references ta educational magazines to tests for the faeararement of intelligence, which seemed I to bo freely used in educational institutions and in tho army of the United 1 States. Scientific psychologists had previously jtbown that it was possible to make exact observations of qualities and processes of blind, but it remained for a Frenchman named Binot to put forward a workable ' scheme far the measurement of general intelHgonca. For fifteen years he conducted a series of experiments in Paris, and finally in 1905 produced a standard sequence of questions which were now known as the Bdnet-Simon intelligence scale. _ This scale was revised in 1808 and, again :u 1911. These questions were used in connection with a large number of individuals mid the results carefully compared, unreliable tests being discarded, and each one finally placed in the order in which it was experimentally found to be most appropriate. Lewis Terman, professor of education at Leland Stanford University, bad applied these tests to American conditions, altering positions of tests where his experience suggested, and adding others which seemed suitable as alternative tests to‘the original; but his system was practically Binet’s. Children went to school at the age of five years or upwards, and their progress from class to class was determined by their ability to reproduce acquired knowledge without any tests being made to ascertain whether they might not be quite capable of assimilating the instruction given to a more advanced class—that was, their inherent mental ability was not measured. On the other hand. . dull- pupils, forced on by energetic teachers, might- also be able to satisfy these’ tests of acquired knowledge, and be promoted to still more difficult work; but there was a danger that those pupils were progressing at a pace not in accordance with their mental growth. If a, system was put forward with claims that it had a more satisfactory basis of classification than our present one, it should 1 be worth our while to make ourselves acquainted with this proposal, and weigh the evidence in its favor. It was in this spirit that he asked them to carefully consider the scheme used verv freely in several parts of the civilised world lor the classification of individuals bemoans of intelligence tests. BINET’S TESTS.

Brnet’s teats were designed not to test the simple and elementary _ mental processes, sUeh as sensory discrimination, _ attention, retentiveness, rapidity to reaction, etc., but to test the higher and more complex processes, such as the reasoning powers, ingenuity, judgment about abstract matters, memory, apperception, language comprehension, knowledge about common objects, number mastery, constructive imagination, ability to compare concepts, .to recognise contradictions, to combine fragments into a unitary whole—in a word, they claimed to . test general intelligence. Binet did, not measure _ the _ intensity of various mental states individually as separate faculties or functions, and then combine tbe :i separate results in one after the manner of a sum in addition, but he tested the combined effect of these faculties, and then he expressed the result in a manner which earlier psychologists had not adopted. When these tests were devised they were tried on normal children of different ages. The tests were then arranged into groups for each year of physical life, so as to bring out the result that an average child would tost “at age.” That was, an average six-year-old child should be able to answer the tests for six-year mental age, but not those for seven or above. An average eight-year-old child should test at eight years, and so on. Binet placed an individual test in a certain year when it was passed by two-thirds or three-fourths. of children of that ago, selected at random. Thus he fixed a standard for every year Of physical ago from three years upwards, and used the standards thus set to denote the results of the tests of the persons experimented on. Thus a child was said to have a mental ago of seven or be of Sevan years mentalitv, irrespective of Iris physical age, if he satisfied the mental test for seven-year-old children only. A person of low mentality whose real age was eighteen might have a mental age of six, or a precocious child of nine might have a mental ago of ten, twelve, or even more. MENTAL AGE.

To find the mental age of a child let them take as an example a pupil of eight years of a<*e. If he passed in all the tests for tills age he was credited with eight years. He was then tested in the ninth year tests. Suppose he passed the testa in four out of the six, then he was credited with four-sixths of a year—that wm, eight months. He was then tested in the tenth year tests, and passed in, say, two. For this he was credited with twosixths of a year—that was, four months. If he then failed to pass any tests in a higher year his mental age was the sum of the results gained for the years in which he had any - successes, thus: —Credit earned in year eight, eight years; in year nine, eight months; in year ten, . four months. 'Mental age, nine years. After the tenth year there were tests for only twelve, fourteen, sixteen (which was called the test for an average adult), and one for superior adults, and the parts of years were worked out as above. When the mental age was arrived at, it was expressed'as a fraction of the physical age ' of the child and converted into a percentage, or, as our friends in the United States said, it was “percentilised.” Thus a pupil of, twelve years of ajre who had a mental age of twelve had what was called an Intelligence Quotient of 100; if his mental age was nine, his LQ. was 9-19, or 75, If mental ago was fifteen, his LQ. was 15-12, or 125, and so on. As native intelligence was. said to improve little after the age of fifteen or sixteen, ft was necessary to disregard the yeans in excess of this point, so for the calcnktions of the LQ. of adults their physical ago was always taken as sixteen. If a young person of twenty and an v old taan of sixty each had‘a mental age of ■! twelve, the LQ. of each would he the ; lame, 12-15-tbafc was, 76. These I.Q.s teero classified in grades:— LQ. Classification Above 140... Almost a genius. 120 to 140.... Very superior intelligence. 110 tq 120.... Superior intelligence. 90 to 110....N0rmal or average intelligence 60 io 50... Dullness, but not feeble- ; • mindedness. 70 to 80. Border-line of defiiciency, Below 70 Definite feeble-mindedness. Of the latter 60 to 70 are morons, 20 to 50 axe imbeciles, below 20 are idiots. Thus a person fifteen years old whose mental age was three would have LQ. of 20—that was, he was an idiot. Tho moron of adult age would range round about an eight-year mental test. IMPORTANCE OF CLASSIFICATION TESTS. It would be seen that if these tests proved what they were claimed to do, this system should be of great use in classifying subnormal children. If any of them had ever seen the inmates of the School for Mental Defectives at Otekaike, in North O tago, they would have seen the difficulty in classifying these according to , ordinary school methods*

It had been found by these tests t-hat 60 per cent, of all school children had I.Q.s between 90' and 110—that was, they were of average intelligence, and the school records showed the same results. Of'a thousand children tested, those whose I.Q.s were between S 6 and 105 were found to bo never seriously misplaced in .their grading in tire school. The very dull children, however, were usually located from one to three grades above where they belonged by mental age, and the duller the child the more serious, as a rule, was the misplacement. On the other hand, the very bright children were nearly always located from one to three grades below whore they belonged by mental age, and the brighter the pupil the. more serious the mietako in the grading. These were the veal “retardates.” or demoted pupils (as contrasted with promoted pupils) as they are called in the United Slates. It was claimed that this method would find out precocious pupils whoso inherent ability might be undiscovered both by' teacher and parent. The highest I.Q.'s on. record at Stanford University were those of two boys—one seven ■'■ears eight months old, whose 1.Q.,was 1(5), and 1 one eight years five months, whose I.Q. was 155. The former was not considered by Ids parents to bo specially clever. He had excellent health, normal play interests, and was a, favorite among his playfellows. It would be interesting to follow up tho eareers-of such cases to see if their progress in life justified their mental classification, hht they must not forget that success in life depended on other things than intellect. Dr L. L. Thurstone, a member of'the. Faculty of tho Division of Applied Psychology in tho Carnegie Institute of Technology, had conducted a number of important investigations on the intelligence of college students in technical schools. One test ho made was in connection with a freshman engineering class at tho institute in 1919, to test'the predictive value of mental tests. He- found out that the various grades of attainments- as measured by ordinary examination methods and those measured by* mental tests corresponded very closely, Ipiid he claimed -that for this reason tho latter tests had a. predictive value, as they could bo carried out in an hour or so, whereas the scholarship grades .and instructors’ estimates of ability required at least several months. to establish. Ho held, however, that intelligence tests should not be the Solo criterion of admission to college, as a student might have superior mentality as shown by an I.T. and still bo a failure as a student, on account of insufficient high school preparation. Experiments had frequently discovered superior ability in pupils who were thought by teachers and even parents not to have any special excellence —in fact, were sometimes considered not of average ability. Frequently this was found to be caused by ilio pupil not- being given the kind of work of which ho was capable, and when put into higher grades more in keeping with his I.Q. ho had been quite .successful in keeping pace with in’s new classmates. On the F. S. Breed and E. R. Breslick, of the University of Chicago, found by trial that three different systems of I.T. yielded different results, and they suggested -that considerable caution should bo observed in' using these tests as a measure of the intelligence’of children, especially as a basis of classification; but they admitted that they provide a preliminary classification which might he rectified as scholastic ability becomes known. They point out- that intelligence was only one of a number of important factors in educational achievement. THE METHOD IN WAR,

When on April 6, 1917, the United States Congress declared war against Germany, there, was being held in Boston a meeting of psychologists, among whom was Dr Robert M. Ycrkes. president of the American Psychological Association. Tiro meeting immediately appointed numerous committees to study the national situation, and to form a plan to make their professional knowledge and experience useful to the nation in its time of clanger. Under the adjutant-general, the Committee cm Classification of Personnel in the army, which was originally- organised- by psychologists, developed and- introduced into tho army methods of classifying .and assigning -enlisted' men in accordance with occupational and educational qualifications, and also methods of rating officers for appointment and promotion. A committee of experts in practical mental measurements worked almost continuously for a month devising, selecting, and -adapting methods. Another month was spent in thoroughly testing these methods in military stations in order that their value might be definitely established before they should be recommended to the medical department of the army. During October and November, 1917, they were applied in four cantonments containing-approximately eighty thousand men, under conditions that could scarcely have been more unfavorable, but they produced results which justified their adoption. By means of these tests, (a) mentally incompetent men were segregated, (b) men were classified according to their mental capacity, (c) competent men for responsible positions were selected. By the end of the war the psychological personnel of the United States army had. increased to the number of 120 officers and 550 enlisted men (c.f. selective draft). Over 500 clerks were used in the examining service in the thirty-five camps where these examinations were carried out j 1,726,966 men, including 41,000 officers, wore- examined. Over 7.800 men were recommended for immediate discharge as being mentally unfit for military training; 10.014 were recommended 1 for labor battalions or other similar low grade organisations. Nearly -50 per cent, of tho one and a-half million men for whom, statistics are available were found to be’ rumble to read and understand newspapers and write letters home. GROUP AND INDIVIDUAL TESTS.

The two ’typos of examinations were used —the group tests and the individual tests. The group system was used for men who could read and write English fairly well. Tho individual exam, was used for illiterates, and for foreigners who could not speak or understand English a special form of examination known- as the performance scale was devised. By the alpha group test as many as 500 men could be examined simultaneously in fifty minutes, No writing was necessary to .answer the 212 questions given, and the papers were marked by stencils, so that nothing was left to the personal judgment of those who did tho scoring. These mental tests were not intended to replace other methods of judging a man's value to the service. It would bo a mistake to assume that they told infallibly what kind of soldier a man would make. They merely helped to do this by measuring one important element in a soldier's equipment—his intelligence. They did not measure loyalty, bravery, power to command, or the emotional traits that made a man “carry on.” However, in the long ran these qualities were more likely to bo found in men of superior intelligence than in men who were intellectually inferior. Intelligence was perhaps tho. most important factor in military efficiency apart from physical fitness. Inspector Robertson gave examples of questions in the various tests and answered a number of questions. A hearty vote of thanks was accorded the speaker for his address.