A Brief History of
Assessment & Testing
“It is necessary to call into council the views of our
predecessors, in order that we may profit by whatever
is sound in their thought and avoid their errors.”
—Aristotle, de Anima, Bk. 1, ch. 2, 403b20-23
A Brief History of
Assessment & Testing
What is assessment?
 Assessment: The process of
gathering information to make
informed decisions.

A Brief History of
Assessment & Testing

Why do we need assessment?
– Categorize
– Diagnose
– Measure Change
– Predict an
Outcome
– Certification
A Brief History of
Assessment & Testing

Sir Francis Galton (18221911)
– Gifted genius
– Founder of social science
– Pioneered use of statistics in
psychological research
– Teacher of Karl Pearson and
Charles Spearman
– Cousin to Charles Darwin
– Eugenics
A Brief History of
Assessment & Testing

James Cattell (1860-1944)
– First person with title
“Professor of Psychology”
– Mental Tests and
Measurements (1890)
– Creator and/or editor of
Psychological Review,
Science (AAAS), and Popular
Science.
– President APA 1895
A Brief History of
Assessment & Testing

Alfred Binet (18571911)
– New Methods for the
Diagnosis of the
Intellectual Level of
Subnormals
– Binet-Simon Scale
– Mental age.
A Brief History of
Assessment & Testing

William Stern (1871-1938)
– The Psychological Methods of
Intelligence Testing
– Modified the Binet-Simon
scale to get the “mental
quotient”, which later became
known as IQ.
MA
IQ 
CA
A Brief History of
Assessment & Testing

Henry Goddard (1866-1957)
– Large scale implementation of
IQ tests.
– The Kallikak Family.
– 27 states practiced eugenics
based on his work.
– Huge influence on military,
immigration, and society.
A Brief History of
Assessment & Testing

Lewis Terman (1877-1956)
– Refined the Binet-Simon test
and produced the modern
Stanford Binet, also known as
the Stanford Achievement
Test.
– The Stanford Achievement
Test (1916) set the testing
benchmark for over two
decades.
A Brief History of
Assessment & Testing

The Army Alpha & Beta
– Developed by the American Psychological
Association.
– Terman, Goddard, & Robert Yerkes were
principle group heading up the project.
– Yerkes organized and lead a staff of forty
psychologist who produce the test in only
two months.
– 1.7 million tests administered during WWI
A Brief History of
Assessment & Testing

The Army Alpha
– The mother of all tests
– 212 questions in MC and T/F format
– Used to classify draftees into officer or
enlisted ranks.
A Brief History of
Assessment & Testing

The Army Beta
– Used to classify illiterate draftees
– Comprised mostly of pictures and
diagrams.
A Brief History of
Assessment & Testing

The testing explosion
– Following the Army Alpha, intelligence
testing became a multimillion-dollar
industry.
– The Army Alpha and other subsequent
tests transformed the once cumbersome
and costly methods of testing into a
process that was easy, inexpensive, and
commonly accepted.
A Brief History of
Assessment & Testing

Voices of Dissent
– Walter Lippman
Testing stamps a label, which, once applied,
is difficult to remove.
 Tests serve the prejudice and powerful.

– Steven J. Gould

The Mismeasure of Man
– Edwin Boring

What is intelligence?
A Brief History of
Assessment & Testing

The past 50 years
– Elementary and Secondary Education Act
(ESEA) of 1965, aka Title I.
– Minimum Competency Testing (MCT).

Lake Woebegone Effect.
– A Nation at Risk.
– Standards based reforms.

WYTIWYG (from WYSIWYG).
A Brief History of
Assessment & Testing

The past 50 years
– National Assessment of Educational
Progress (NAEP), The Nations Report
Card.
– Third International Mathematics and
Science Study (TIMSS).
– Inclusion.
A Brief History of
Assessment & Testing
Reasons for using intelligence tests:
1.
Reasonably good at predicting
performance in school.
2.
Mental abilities are very much an inherited
trait (twin and adoption studies).
3.
Mental measurement is useful, beneficial
to society, and is one of psychologies
greatest contributions to modern life.
A Brief History of
Assessment & Testing

Concerns about Testing/Assessing
– Test Anxiety
– Categorizing & Labeling
– Effects on Self-Concept
– Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
– Test Fairness/Bias
A Brief History of
Assessment & Testing

Concerns about Not Testing/Assessing
– How do you know if a person is inclined
to succeed?
– How do you know if a person can really
perform a function?
– How do you choose between different
people, organizations, services, and
businesses?