Paper Topic:
IQ Tests
Running Head : IQ Tests Title IQ Tests IQ Tests History of Intelligence Testing The concept of intelligence tests began with the work of Francis Galton in the late 19th century . Galton believed that measurement of intelligence was to be as direct as possible and hence suggested reaction time as a feasible approach (Chamorro-Premuzic , 2005 . He used various sensori-motor measurements and it is interesting to note that modern day psychologists such as Arthur Jensen and Mike Andersen are working on similar lines . Intelligence testing began in France in 1904 when
psychologist Alfred Binet was asked by the French Government to find a method of differentiating between normal children and intellectually inferior children so that the latter could be put in special schools . The Binet scale (also known as the Binet-Simon scale was developed in 1905 . German psychologist L . Wilhelm Stern was the first to coin the term intelligence quotient (IQ , a figure derived from the ratio of mental age to chronological age . Binet warned that his instrument was not to be used as a general device for measuring intelligence . According to Binet , the scale , properly speaking , does not permit the measure of intelligence , because intellectual qualities are not superposable , and therefore cannot be measured as linear surfaces are measured ' Binet feared that IQ measurement would be used to condemn a child to a permanent condition ' of stupidity , this negatively affecting his or her education and livelihood . H . H Goddard , director of research at Vineland Training School in New Jersey translated Binet 's work into English and used it for admission purposes in his school . He classified people as being normal , idiots , or imbeciles and even developed a new word morons ' to describe people who were somewhere between normal and idiots . Unlike Binet , Goddard considered intelligence a solitary , fixed and inborn entity that could be measured (Chamorro-Premuzic , 2005
Lewis M . Terman revised the Simon-Binet Scale and his final product launched in 1916 was the Stanford Revision of the Binet - Simon scale of Intelligence or Stanford- Binet . Terman also changed the concept of a mental age into a standardized IQ score , which is the approach still used today . This became the standard intelligence test in the United States for the next several decades . Goddard 's believed firmly in the innateness and inalterability of intelligence levels so much he lobbied for restrictive immigration laws and allow only immigrants of superior intelligence into the United States . Charles Spearman (1927 ) argued that , as a rule , people who do well on some intelligence tests also do well on a variety of intellectual tasks such as vocabulary and mathematical and spatial abilities . And if people did poorly on an intelligence test , then they also tended to do poorly on other intellectual tests . That is , he observed correlations among performance on a variety of intellectual tasks . Thus , he proposed , a 'two-factor theory of intelligence : General Ability (g : which was required for performance of mental tests of all kinds and Special Abilities : which were required for performance on just one...
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