Alfred Binet - Essay

In the beginning of the 20th century, French psychologist Alfred Binet developed an intelligence test to pilot student achievement. Since then, a plethora of tests of similar rigor have emerged throughout the world; however, when looking towards the United States, it is apparent that these tests are in favor. In the United States, standardized tests have been a part of student life for more than 50 years (Fletcher). The problem arises in the sense that these tests are now more pressure-packed and ubiquitous than ever. This can be linked to the fact that in the U.S., students are now taking more standardized tests than ever before.

A study published in the Journal Neuron stated that the traditional IQ test did not accurately measure all of these components.

In 1904, a French psychologist (Alfred Binet) created the first intelligence test in order to help the French Ministry of Education segregate children that may have difficulty learning in a regular classroom. At that time, he did not know that his test would be the basis for IQ tests administered over 100 years later. He has a Stanford University psychologist, Lewis Terman, to thank for expanding his work and creating the Stanford-Binet intelligence test that took root in the United States in 1916 and is still popular today. However, along with its popularity came criticism. Critics see the current version of the Stanford - Binet test and other intelligence tests, despite attempts to make them culturally fair, as limiting to individuals who are not from the major social norm. They claim that cultural bias in test questions is why certain races do not perform as well as others on the test.

Formal assessments such as standardized tests are not ideal to use to assess young children. Young children are constantly developing and changing, and because of these rapid changes, it is important to adjust assessments accordingly. Young children typically demonstrate their knowledge through doing as opposed to writing and talking. Therefore, conducting a standardized test on youngsters would be extremely hard, making the results difficult to measure and highly inaccurate (Shepard, Kagan & Wurtz, 1998, p. 3-5).

In researching the types of tests that are administered to determine intelligence, it became very clear that there were many differing opinions surrounding the efficacy of intelligence testing. There exists compelling information that suggest there is a lack of ability for any test to clearly identify and measure intelligence. It is very clearly noted that there is a question of the ability for academics based testing to measure a persons intelligence. One of the most noted tests in the United States that is used to measure the potential of students to perform in an educational setting is the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT). Through the years this test has undergone many changes in attempts to overcome challenges in correctly

Binet and Simon were asked to design a test to scientifically diagnose “inferior” intelligence. The Binet-Simon Intelligence test would come about several years later as a result of this earlier test (Nicolas & Levine, ). Binet’s intelligence test, the Binet-Simon Scale was a success because it was “inexpensive, easy to administer, objectively scorable, and predictive of classroom performance” (Siegler, 1992, p. 185). The test allowed schools to identify students that learned at a slower rate than their peers, which would make them eligible for special education. One of Binet’s goals in developing the intelligence test was to assist teachers and school administrators to place children in classes that would be appropriate for their individual learning

What intelligence testing does what some may argue is that it sets a standard of abilities society should meet. The controversies continue and there may or may not be a right answer to resolve this dilemma, but this discussion is only to show the history and counter positions of the spectrum.

Alfred Binet is a French psychologist who is known to have developed the very first practical intelligence test which became the basis for contemporary intelligence tests. He worked with a young medical student who was also his research assistant to come up with what became simply as the Binet-Simon Scale.

Since 1904, when it was created by British Psychologist Charles Spearman who collected data from several villages surrounding his home he concluded that the correlations amongst the multiple variables could best be explained by assuming that there was a single factor of mental ability that underlay them[12]. And thus the theory of the “g” factor and model was born. One year later French Psychologist Alfred Binet created the first usable I.Q. test that had the purpose “ to help identify learning-disabled children who needed special schools”. Binet himself even warned that “ a ‘brutal pessimism’ would follow if his test was ever mistaken as a measure of a fixed, unchangeable intelligence” [13] In 1912, American psychologist and eugenicist, Henry Goddard was hired by immigration authorities to do “quality control” [13] at Ellis Island due to the massive amount of Eastern and Southern

tests. When issuing a standardized test there needs to be solid evidence that ensures that the results are reliable and unprejudiced. The original standardized I.Q. test had been the Binet-Simon Scale in 1904, made by Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon. The main purpose of the test was to help students who had difficulties learning in school by identifying the majority of them and giving them extra help. (Hally, 2015). “These and other IQ tests were eventually used for less than admirable purpose, screening new immigrants as they entered the United States from Ellis Island. IQ test results were inappropriately used to make false generalizations and to

Many of the characteristics are visually and audibly obvious, language ability, height and physical capability. Other characteristics are less obvious, such as how children sense the world around them. Child psychologists try to focus on the why, when and how children develop in the way they do. Child psychology also explains how children reach specific milestones and how these milestones may impact on their own individual development pathway. The broad topic of child psychology tries to provide answers to many questions which researchers divide into key areas. Those key areas are physical, social, cognitive and emotional. After the 1st World War, a biologist from Switzerland named Jean Piaget (1896-1980) put together the Intelligence Quotient test (or IQ test) to aid with cognitive thinking. The test was developed in France and aimed at children who may have been at risk of psychological

I knew about the Binet-Simon test (Lecture 6a) because in the 1960s I had one each year in school. I had other tests like the Binet-Simon test each year the other children in my class did not have. I did not know the scores or what other tests were given to me, however they must have been good scores because a couple of men came to speak with my parents. I did not know anything about IQ tests before this class. I thought I would have more information on the IQ test when taking psychology and sociology, yet there was no class information on the tests so I could make sense of all the testing I went through as a child.

The first mental tests designed to be used for mass, group testing were developed by psychologists for the U.S. Army in 1917-1918. The group tests were modeled after intelligence tests designed for individual use in one-on-one assessment. In developing the mental tests, the psychologists subscribed to the position that one could be quite intelligent, but illiterate or not proficient in the English language. Based on this reasoning, two major tests were developed, the Army Alpha for literate groups, and the Army Beta for illiterates, low literates or non-English speaking (Yerkes, 1921). Both tests were based on the theoretical position that intelligence was an inherited trait, and the assumption was made that native intelligence was being

Psychological testing has been around for years. 2,000 years ago, the Chinese empire administered civil service examinations to potential candidates entailing a wide range of knowledge and skills (Bowman, 1989; DuBois, 1970). But the launching of the testing movement is largely due to biologist Francis Galton for believing that the index of a person’s intelligence could be found by testing sensory discrimination and also his development of statistical methods (Anastasi, 1993). Intelligence testing became explored by Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon, believing that intelligence could be measured through multifaceted logical functions, as a result the Binet-Simon scale was developed. Another important step in this testing movement was the effects of World War I. During this stressful time, two major developments happened, a psychometric instrument was developed for group testing service members which paved the way for organizations to use group testing and personality tests emerged due to studying mental health patients from the war.

The definition of ‘Intelligence’ has been a long-debated topic, and there have been various theories and perspectives of intelligence to date. As a result, various intelligence tests and its controversies have surfaced with these perspectives.