PAPERS ON PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION 477 



FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS NEEDED IN TESTS 

 FOR MENTAL MEASUREMENT 



Clara Schmitt, Bureau of Child Study, Chicago 



The practical or clinical psychologist of today makes 

 much use of the terms intelligence, mental age, iyitelli- 

 gence quotient. He is asked and expected to settle cer- 

 tain social and educational problems on the basis of these 

 terms, and what is vastly more important, the fate of 

 individuals who at some points of social adjustment are 

 atypical. The authors of scales of mental measurement 

 ask us to assume for the most part that these terms indi- 

 cate something fixed, innate, and relatively unchange- 

 able. Much in the way of mathematical proof has been 

 adduced to justify the assumption. 



To the conscientious psychologist, holding the fate of 

 some definite individual in his hand, there comes the won- 

 der as to just what these terms mean. Shall he send a 

 delinquent child with a certain I. Q. to the home for 

 the feeble minded, and another a few points higher back 

 to the privileges of social liberty? Shall he place this 

 child in the room for special defectives in the school, 

 and recommend another no farther advanced scholastic- 

 ally for residence with his normal fellows? Are I. Q.'s 

 in themselves a safe guide to decision? What does the 

 I. Q. represent? Do the terms intelligence, mental age 

 and I. Q. cover the same ground fundamentally as their 

 authors would have us believe? These questions are be- 

 ing asked here and there with the accompanying element 

 of doubt implied in most questions. The answers, both 

 on the part of the doubters and the apostles, have always 

 come in the form of more mathematical statistics. In 

 my opinion the answer can not be deduced from this 

 source, but from analysis of tests themselves and the 

 relation of their character to the various known factors 

 of growth and development. 



The term intelligence is capable of two constructions 

 of meaning and is used so loosely in the literature of men- 

 tal testing that the reader can only guess at times which it 

 is intended to mean. This point must be cleared up before 

 we can proceed, and tests of mental ability must be 



