Intelligence Tests: An Outmoded Way of Measuring Anything.

For most of us in the developed world taking an intelligence test at some point of time is an automatic procedure. But the fact is there are many different types of intelligence. There is emotional intelligence, musical intelligence, bodily intelligence, to mention but a few. The regular intelligence tests do not take most of these other forms of intelligence into account. We all know that but we continue to administer them and all too often place great faith in them and use them to classify people. Yet where did this concept originate? And do intelligence tests have any genuine value? Can they really tell us how intelligent a person is?

The idea of intelligence tests came from Alfred Binet, a nineteenth century French psychologist. Binet’s original idea was to use some sort of test to discover which children suffered from learning disabilities. However, within a relatively short time it developed into something far wider. Binet, together with Theodore Simon, a medical student worked out a test that would measure intelligence. The test was refined several times so that it could measure more accurately the mental age of the child in relation to his/her physical age. Binet acknowledged that this test was limited and was still working on improving it when he died at the age of 54. But even though the test was not finely honed due to the early demise of its creator it is still given globally. One of the reasons for this is that logistically it is easy to administer. But logistics hardly seems a good enough reason to continue administering a test that modern research has shown to be limited.

Whether or not intelligence tests are valid is very controversial today. IQ tests are frequently used to play a significant role in determining our future. Yet the scientific community cannot agree what intelligence is! Many of the scientists have very different opinions. For example the English psychologist Charles Spearman (1863-1945) believed that intelligence was a single entity, which he called ‘General Intelligence’. In other words, for him, the term ‘intelligence’ covered a variety of interconnected mental abilities – verbal, mathematical and spatial. However, for the American psychologist Robert Sternberg (1949-present), intelligence is made up of 3 basic aspects: analytical, practical and creative. If the experts cannot agree on what intelligence is, then inevitably certain abilities will be overlooked in the IQ tests.

In 1995 “The Times Higher Education” asserted that creativity is totally excluded in intelligence tests. These claims are in fact true. And if we look at many creative people we see that they did not fare well in school and their talent was certainly not acknowledged by the test and as a result they all too often got lost in the traditional school system. Einstein was expelled from school, but even in our own modern era creative people have not found a fit in the educational system that classifies according to an old fashioned test. Johnny Depp and Christina Aguilera are just two creative talents who dropped out of school, yet their later success has revealed their intelligence, something the present testing system failed to do.

But intelligence tests have disadvantages other than their failure to acknowledge creativity. Research has shown that those who are more marginalized, such as immigrants, do less well on these tests. The reasons for this are multiple but the basic explanation is that these tests have a cultural bias. This can manifest itself in many ways. For example if the person administering the test is of a different cultural or ethnic background to the one taking it then there are already discrepancies. So how much greater are the discrepancies when the tests are written, as they usually are, by someone from the mainstream culture. How does someone from the minority culture cope? Unfortunately, the answer to that question is not too well.

There is also the cultural context of gender. For many years the issue of gender bias in intelligence tests was not acknowledged. When it was finally recognized, it was discussed from the point of view of how the ability of women had been underestimated in the extreme ranges: gifted and retarded. However, the fact is that far too many intelligence tests stress the skills that men are strong in, for example, numerical reasoning, gross motor skills and spatial perception. It is for this reason that one can claim that gender bias plays a significant role in determining the results of intelligence tests. And these tests will only be fair when the aspects that women score higher in – verbal ability, memory and perception of details – weigh as heavily as those that men score higher in.

Moreover, IQ tests cause a great deal of stress. We all know a lot is riding on them. Even very young children who do not really understand what is going on can pick up the vibes of being given an important test and start to feel stress. This stress can all too easily be increased by external circumstances. For example, if the room in which the exam takes place is too cold or badly ventilated. And then there are the people who suffer from exam anxiety. Can an intelligence test judge them accurately?

With so many disadvantages it seems incredible that intelligence tests are not only still being administered, but that people are relying on the results of them to make important decisions, such as what class to place a child in, who goes into the better schools, the higher streams and who gets the job. This exam, which has not kept up with the changes in either society or technology, has been proven to have many defects, yet it is still popular. Is this because no one has been able to find anything to replace it with? Possibly, or it something more basic? The human need to classify people into certain boxes. Apparently this is so important to us that we will not give up on any device that can do that – even if it does it badly.

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Tags: Intelligence, Disadvantages, tests, intelligence tests, Test, cultural bias of IQ tests