The Significance of the Binet-Simon Tests · SIGNIFICANCE OF BINET-SIMON TESTS. 123 same ability or...

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Transcript of The Significance of the Binet-Simon Tests · SIGNIFICANCE OF BINET-SIMON TESTS. 123 same ability or...

The Psychological Clinic Copyright, 1910, by Lightner Witmer, Editor.

Vol. X, No. 5 October 15, 1916

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BINET-SIMON TESTS.

By Edward L. Thorndike, Ph. D., Teachers College, Columbia University, New York i/

In a study of the intellectual status of the dependent children of a certain county, made by Mr. Stenquist, Mr. Trabue, and the author, four series of tests were used?the Binet-Simon series as arranged by Goddard, a series of 56 sentences with omitted words to be filled, a series of passages to be read with questions to measure the compre- hension gained by the reading, and a series of mechanisms to be put together out of their loose parts, the mechanisms themselves being at hand for examination.* Each child was first given as a measure in each test the age of the median ordinary child attaining the score which the dependent child in question attained. Then, as his final

measures, the four differences (plus or minus) of these ages from the dependent child's actual chronological age were used.

It is of some theoretical interest, and of great practical importance, to measure the correlations between these four measures of superior- ity or inferiority to the median ordinary child of the same chrono- logical age. I have therefore computed the Pearson coefficients of correlation with the following results:

the interrelations of the three tests of intellect involving ability

WITH WORDS, NUMBERS, AND THE LIKE.

29 10-year olds. 31 11-year olds. 35 12-year olds. 35 13-year olds. 23 14-year olds.

Average of the 5 r's.

Binet with

Completion Test.

.86 h

.80|

.89

.94

.87

.87-2

Binet with

Reading Test.

.78

.70

.84

.90 h

.82

.81

Completion with Reading

Test.

.74

.82

.90

.92

.92

.86

* Details concerning the tests may be found in "The Intellectual Status of Children Who are Public Charges, Archives of Psychology, No. 33, Sept., 1915.

(121)

122 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC

It is clear that these three series measure much the same com-

plex of abilities and achievements. If the Binet tests measure general intellect, so to a high degree must the tests in merely reading a passage with understanding. The Binet tests are almost as much

like intelligent reading in what they measure as the completion tests, dealing exclusively with words, are. If the Binet tests are really ade- quate to measure that mixture of ability to deal with words and with facts expressed in words and other symbols, ability to deal with things of all sorts and ability to deal with people, whereby a person lives successfully, then the very much more convenient Completion and Reading tests are also approximately accurate measures of that

mixture and should be used widely in mental diagnosis. If, on the other hand, as I think, the Binet test measures chiefly the ability to deal with ideas expressed in words, and is inadequate as a measure of mechanical ability or executive ability, the fate of children should not be decided so exclusively by it, as is now the case.

This latter hypothesis is supported by the correlations in the case of the test of mechanical ability, or construction test. If the

Binet tests measure general ability adequately they should correlate closely with the construction test?as closely, say, as they do with the reading test (except for a possibly greater "attenuation" due to a greater unreliability in the construction test than in the reading test). They do not. On the contrary, they show no superiority in this respect to the completion test and very little superiority to the reading test. The correlations found (Pearson coefficients) are as

follows:

RELATIONS OF THE BINET, COMPLETION AND READING SCORES TO THE CONSTRUC-

TION TEST SCORES.

28 10-year olds.

11-year olds.

12-year olds.

13-year olds. 24 14-year olds.

Average of 5 r's ..

Binet with

Construction.

.68

? 74| .55| ? 56| .604

.63

Completion with

Construction.

.68

.70

.62

.511

.731

.65

Reading with

Construction.

55| .70

.40 h

.45|

.75h

.571

Composite of

Binet, Completion and Reading with

Construction.

.66

.76

.59

55| .75

.66

Clearly the Binet test is not an adequate test of intellect in gen- eral for even very stupid children of ages 10-14. It tests much the

SIGNIFICANCE OF BINET-SIMON TESTS. 123

same ability or complex of abilities as the completion and reading tests. This ability or complex of abilities is far from identical with the ability measured by the construction test, for example.

It should be noted that, although it is fair to use the relative amounts of these correlations for the purposes of the argument of this paper, their absolute amounts should not be assumed to hold

good for a group formed by random sampling. These dependent children are inferior to average children of equal chronological age in the construction test, and are very much inferior to average chil- dren in the other three tests. Their deviations being taken from the

average child of the age in question, we have a selection largely of minus deviations, and it is not certain that the correlation calculated from such a selection will represent fairly the correlation calculated from a random sampling of all.