The National Intelligence Tests

Abstract

Before the war both Professor Yerkes and Professor Terman approached the General Education Board for the support of a sort of school survey which would include the measurement of the intelligence of a good-sized group of pupils. The success of the Army Alpha Intelligence Examination made it evident that the same general methods would be applicable for such an examina tion of intelligence and that there would almost certainly be attempts made on the part of various individuals who had had contact with the army methods to adapt these to the examination of school children. It was felt that it would be very advantageous to the whole movement of mental testing if this adaptation could be made carefully, systematically, under the auspices of some institution or organization with prestige, and by men who would make a serious and expert contribution. The General Education Board acted favorably upon these suggestions with the proviso that the National Research Council should take the responsi bility for the undertaking and. that a group of four or five psycholo gists should cooperate in working out the details. A sum of money was appropriated for the work, and Messrs. Haggerty, Terman, Thorndike, Yerkes, and the speaker were made the members of the Committee. We met first at Washington March 28-29, 1919, again April 29 to May 2, 1919, a third time October 17-18, 1919, and at Chicago in December, 1920. A preliminary printing of trial tests was made in the spring of 1919, and the final completed scales were issued in the summer of 1920. Something like 200,000 copies have been sold to date. The authors' royalties, I may add, are turned over to the National Research Council for use in further studies of tests. It is my object in a few minutes to say something about the aims of our committee, the methods by which its work was