None of the Above: Behind
the Myth of Scholastic
Aptitude
Ch. 9: The Cult of Mental
Measurement
Objectives
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Think critically about the history and rationale of the first
IQ tests, and Scholastic Aptitude Test.
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Become familiar with the background of the individuals
who developed IQ testing and the SAT.
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Think critically about the meritocratic rationale infused in
the testing movement.
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Become familiar with forms of test bias.
History of Intelligence Testing
1.
2.
Head Circumference (Francis Galton
1880) – first attempts to measure
intelligence
Binet-Simon (Alfred Binet 1909) – first
“intelligence test”
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comissioned by French gov to separate
children into vocational vs academic
schooling
did not design test to measure
‘intelligence’
created concept of mental age (MA)
The History of IQ testing
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First IQ tests developed by Alfred Binet
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Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon
30 items of increasing difficulty - 1905
Revision 1908 – age specific versions
These were developed to identify children who
needed ‘special’ education Binet believed that IQ could be increased by
education
Henry Herbert Goddard (1866-1957)
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Major Contributions
Translated the Binet-Simon intelligence scale into
English (1908)
Distributed 22,000 copies of the translated Binet
scale and 88,000 answer blanks across the United
States (1908-1915)
Established the first laboratory for the
psychological study of mentally retarded persons
(1910)
Helped to draft the first American law mandating
special education (1911)
Strongly argued the hereditarian position
Intelligence Testing
• Alfred Binet
• Introduction of Mental Age
– 1916 L.M. Terman & Stanford Colleagues
revise Binet’s test for use in the United States
• Introduction of the term IQ
– Mental Age / Chronological Age = IQ
Intelligence Testing
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Intelligence Testing
World War I - Robert Yerkes
– Need for large-scale group administered ability
tests by the army
– Army commissions Yerkes, then head of the
American Psychological Association, to
develop two structured tests of human abilities
Army Alpha - required reading ability
Army Beta - did not require reading ability
Testing “frenzy” hits between World War I
and the 1930s.
Robert Yerkes (1876 – 1956)
Question from the Army Beta test
What’s missing from each picture?
Administration of the Army Alpha and Beta tests,
the first “group tests,” to be followed in due
course by the SAT, LSAT, GRE, etc.
Carl Brigham
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Carl Brigham (Yerkes colleague)
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Explained the differences in terms of racial superiority
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“we notice the Einsteins of the world BECAUSE they are
exceptional for their Jewish race”
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Brigham quite literally created the culture of standardized
testing. He invented the 200-800 scale, the delta difficulty
rating system, the practice of testing ne\v questions by
burying them in actual tests, the equating of tests from one
year to another, and the internally justified item-analysis
method still used by ET'S. The theoretical foundations of
the SAT
Questions:
What types of bias does Owen note, in The Cult of Mental
Measurement?
How did WWI & WWII affect the testing movement?
What are some of the problems with the test questions
Owen details in this chapter?
What role did The Cult of Mental Measurement envision for
IQ tests and the SAT?
The SAT
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The point of the SAT was to extend the Alpha standard to
what Brigham and the Board viewed as mainstream
American culture. The SAT was to be the cornerstone of a
new American social order - the aristocracy of aptitude, the
meritocracy
The SAT
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(U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the
Census, Current Population Survey)
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Mean verbal SAT score for children in
households with incomes below $10,000: 427
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Mean verbal SAT score for children in
households with incomes above $100,000: 559
Intelligence
 There
is still no clear operational
definition of intelligence
 Both
race and IQ are political rather
than biological facts
 (Socially constructed)
Heredity & Intelligence