Empirical Considerations on Intelligence Testing and Models of Intelligence: Updates for Educational Measurement Professionals (original) (raw)

Intelligence testing is the practice of administering a series of exercises and tasks to measure cognitive and mental functions like comprehension, reasoning, critical thinking and abstraction. This practice had it beginnings in the United States of America almost two centuries ago, to help ensure equitable and effective education for all, at a time when the public education system was on the verge of a sudden spurt of expansion. In its early days, intelligence testing was merely viewed as a diagnostic tool to facilitate timely intervention and support for individuals with learning difficulties. However, it soon assumed the unintended role of classifying and segregating individuals, resulting in ‘intellectual casteism’ and meritocracy in society. This paper contends that a skewed and narrow perspective of intelligence – one that overlooks the larger socioeconomic and cultural context of human existence – is to be held responsible for these undesirable fallouts. With a renewed understanding of the sociocultural and gender-based factors that underlie the expression of human intelligence, it becomes possible to devise culturally inclusive and student-friendly models of testing that facilitate growth and development of human potential. Keywords: Intelligence, Intelligence testing, Stanford-Binet Intelligence scale, Ecological systems theory, Four-tiered Bio-ecological assessment