Psychometric Testing

Abstract

As is well known, the first intelligence scale with practical applications was developed by the French psychologist Alfred Binet at the turn of the century. Binet set out to assemble a set of tasks that could differentiate children who succeeded in school from those who did not. His early attempts were largely empirical and he put together a collection of tasks that he felt reflected the elements of intelligent behavior needed to succeed in the school setting. Among these were tasks making demands on judgment, common sense, memory, initiative, and adaptive behavior. Binet tested large groups of children who were successful in school and established norms or performance expectations for children of different ages. On the basis of these norms, he assessed the relative progress of children having difficulty.