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The testing movement in the United States has The key issue is obviously the validity of so-
been a success, if one judges success by the usual called intelligence tests. Their use could not be
American criteria of size, influence, and profit- justified unless they were valid, and it is my
ability. Intelligence and aptitude tests are used conviction that the evidence for their validity is by
nearly everywhere by schools, colleges, and em- no means so overwhelming as most of us, rather un-
ployers. It is a sign of backwardness not to have thinkingly, had come to think it was. In point of
test scores in the school records of children. The fact, most of us just believed the results that the
Educational Testing Service alone employs about testers gave us, without subjecting them to the
2,000 people, annually administers Scholastic Apti- kind of fierce skepticism that greets, for example,
tude Tests to thousands of aspirants to college, and the latest attempt to show that ESP exists. My
makes enough money to support a large basic re- objectives are to review skeptically the main lines of
search operation. Its tests have tremendous power evidence for the validity of intelligence and aptitude
over the lives of young people by stamping some of tests and to draw some inferences from this review
them "qualified" and others "less qualified" for col- as to new lines that testing might take in the future.
lege work. Until recent "exceptions" were made Let us grant at the outset that brain-damaged
(over the protest of some), the tests have served as or retarded people do less well on intelligence tests
a very efficient device for screening out black, than other people. Wechsler (19S8) initially used
Spanish-speaking, and other minority applicants to this criterion to validate his instrument, although it
colleges. Admissions officers have protested that has an obvious weakness: brain-damaged people do
they take other qualities besides test achievements less well on almost any test so that it is hard to
into account in granting admission, but careful argue that something unique called "lack of in-
studies by Wing and Wallach (1971) and others telligence" is responsible for the deficiency in test
have shown that this is true only to a very limited scores. The multimethod, multitrait criterion has
degree. not been applied here.
Why should intelligence or aptitude tests have
all this power? What justifies the use of such tests
in selecting applicants for college entrance or jobs? Tests Predict Grades in School
On what assumptions is the success of the move- The games people are required to play on apti-
ment based? They deserve careful examination be- tude tests are similar to the games teachers require
fore we go on rather blindly promoting the use of in the classroom. In fact, many of Binet's original
tests as instruments of power over the lives of many tests were taken from exercises that teachers used
Americans. in French schools. So it is scarcely surprising that
aptitude test scores are correlated highly with
grades in school. The whole Scholastic Aptitude
article contains the substance of remarks made at Testing movement rests its case largely on this
a public lecture given at the Educational Testing Service,
Princeton, New Jersey, January 4, 1971. single undeniable fact. Defenders of intelligence
Requests for reprints should be sent to David C. Mc- testing, like McNemar (1964), often seem to be
Clelland, Department of Psychology and Social Relations, suggesting that this is the only kind of validity
Harvard University, William James Hall, Cambridge,
Massachusetts 02138. necessary. McNemar remarked that "the manual