Education put to the test
Intelligence tests changed the way we educate children and shaped them for work, writes Jessica Long.
Ink is to a pen as paint is to a, what? Testing intelligence has been an obsession for more than a century, shaping and changing the way we educate our children.
The smarter a person is perceived to be, supposedly the more suitable they are for a particular profession, position or academic goal. Identifying that person’s best fit benefits all society – at least that was the thinking behind examining the brain in the early 20th century.
The concept would change the education sector forever, making its way to New Zealand schools for the first time in Wellington on February 29, 1924, in what is understood to be the first nationwide use of intelligence testing in the world.
Today, students are still loosely linked to the original psychological analysis that identified a person’s aptitude.
A standardised methodology was greatly appreciated by psychologists in the 1900s. Over time, that thinking influenced school curriculum and the way pupils were taught – including our own National Standards. Now, however, many educators are frustrated by the idea of pigeon-holing learners in such a way.
This week, Minister of Education Chris Hipkins said the focus on standardisation and measurement over the past few years was ‘‘backward’’ and ‘‘simply won’t cut it in the future’’.
‘‘Schools say there is too much red tape that has stifled creativity and innovation. It needs to engage every learner – in a much more personalised learning experience.’’
In May 1924, however, the ability to ‘‘explore the mind with thoroughness and precision, never attempted before’’ led to a ‘‘true education . . . physical, mental and moral ability to successfully face the battle of life’’, it was reported.
‘‘One of the greatest social wastes today was due to the fact that so many men and women, because of present economic conditions and lack of proper direction, were engaged in occupations far beneath their level of ability. While others were attempting to work too complex for their mental strength.’’
It appears to have began in the early 1900s when Europeans used an intelligence test later promoted by American psychologist Henry Goddard.
In 1908, he travelled to Europe, where his studies led to the Binet-Simon intelligence scales which, translated into English with modified methodologies, became America’s Goddard-Binet test.
People were graded in terms of their mental age and the test became ‘‘necessary in the diagnosis and classification of mental defect’’, according to a New Zealand parliamentary report, Mental Deficiency and its Treatment 1927.
Goddard claimed the tests led to the discovery of a new class of ‘‘feebleminded’’ whom he called ‘‘moron’’. Others were identified as ‘‘idiots’’, ‘‘imbeciles’’, ‘‘persons mentally infirm’’ and ‘‘persons of unsound mind’’.
Not long after Goddard’s test was rolled out it was being remodelled, amid fears that his definitions were being misconstrued.
In New Zealand in the 1920s, J A Young, who was in charge of Wellington’s mental hospitals, said a prominent American doctor, Wallin, saw dangers in the rigid interpretation of the Goddard-Binet tests.
‘‘I assert boldly that one-tenth to onehalf of the children in special schools are not at all feeble-minded,’’ Wallin said.
Young’s reports highlighted the limitations such tests could have on a child.
As Goddard introduced his tests, Stanford University professor, psychologist and author Lewis Terman was devising a way to explore eugenics – the controversial concept of improving the genetic quality of humans.
The debate had raged since the term was coined in 1883 by Francis Galton, the nephew of Charles Darwin who was famous for his evolutionary concept of natural selection.
Terman used his work to create the Terman Group Test of Mental Ability, which was advertised as a reliable, lowcost and efficient way to standardise test measurements among a large population of children.
The tests led to him being seen as a pioneer in educational psychology.
Something about the way these Terman tests were used in the United States intrigued Frank Milner, when he was rector at Otago’s Waitaki Boys’ High School. He was curious enough to undertake a study tour of America, with the backing of then education minister Sir Christopher Parr.
After Milner’s return, an Education Department trial of intelligence testing began on 8657 first-year post-primary students on February 29, 1924. Pupils at Waitaki Boys’ High were among the first to sit the half-hour exam.
An Auckland Star editorial said the tests were ‘‘fundamentally defective and fallacious’’ because several prominent US businessmen had flunked a similar test, according to New Zealand History.
Academics cautioned that the results were only comparable for pupils whose ‘‘home environments’’ were similar and that the test could be bettered by students able to study it beforehand – for example, children of the principals setting it.
Despite the arguments against the test, by 1926 it was being adopted throughout New Zealand schools. It was eventually replaced by the Otis Intermediate Intelligence Test.
The Otis test contained 75 multiplechoice questions of increasing difficulty. ‘‘A foot is to a man, and a paw is to a cat, the same as a hoof is to a what? (1) a dog; (2) a horse; (3) a shoe; (4) a blacksmith; (5) a saddle.’’ – NZ History reports.
The Otis test remained in use in New Zealand schools until the late 1960s.