In opposition to routine universal administration of IQ tests

Fear of self-fulfilling prophecies in itself is not an insignificant reason to refrain fran routine, universal administration of intelligence tests. Young, Algozzine & Schmid (1979) attempted to ascertain the extent to which categorical labels (LD or ED) influenced 4th and 5th grade peers. Research results suggested that positive attributes produced favorable peer ratings when compared to neutral ones. However, whether applied to categorical labels or to "objective" tests used to arrive at the label, this evidence alone would seen to address more the issue of access to test results than how widely to apply the instruments.

One strong argument against expanded use of IQ tests is the limited value of the score itself. Sundberg (1977.) points out: "For one thing, people have tended to make a test result important than the technical limitations of tests warrant. The reliability of most well-known intelligence tests is high (usually in the .80s or .90s), but even such high figures allow for variation. If tests are repeated over several years' the, same variation is to be expected, and IQ changes are as high as 25 to 50 points in certain rare circtJl5tances, especially if a youngster has gone through periods of maladjustment or parental disturbance. (Honzik, 1948; Bayley & Schaefer, 1964) Also, Oden (1968) found abundant evidence of achievement in a 25-year follow up of children identified as having high IQs, but the degree of success seemed not to depend on how high the score was. Creativity, exploratory interest, economic supports, and environmental opportunities are a few factors not be measured by standard intelligence tests. "In any case the IQ must be viewed as measured intelligence, not necessary the adaptive intelligence used in everyday life" (Sundberg, 1977; emphasis in original).

This argument was anticipated by Kohler (1947) when he discussed IQ scores: "The scores are mere numbers which allow of many different interpretations... a given score may mean: degree 4 of intelligence, together with degree 1 of 'accuracy,' with degree 4 of 'ambition' and degree 3 of 'quickness of fatigue.' But it may also mean 'intelligence' 6, 'accuracy' 2, 'ambition' 1 and 'quickness of fatigue' 4... Thus combinations of certain components in varying proportions may give precisely the same IQ... and a child ought to .be treated according to the nature and strength of the specific factors which cooperate in establishing his total IQ... ok are still much too easily satisfied by our tests because, as quantitative procedures, they look so pleasantly scientific." In this same vein, discussing over-reliance on intelligence testing, Braglinsky & Braglinsky (1974) comment wryly: "In their desire to became scientists, psychologists have acted like the proverbial drunkard who, though he lost his keys in a dark alley, searches for them a half block away under the street lamp because it's lighter there am easier to see."

In a 1916 debate with early IQ proponent Lewis M. Terman, journalist Walter Lippmann foresaw the dangers of the mass marketing of national intelligence tests then underway: "The danger of the intelligence tests is that in a wholesale system of education, the less sophisticate or the more prejudiced will stop when they have classified am forget that their duty is to educate. They will grade the retarded child instead of fighting the causes of his backwardness. For the whole drift of the propaganda based on intelligence testing is to treat people with low intelligence quotients as congenitally and hopelessly inferior" (cited in Gould, 1981).

REFERENCES

Braginsky, B.M. & Braginsky, D.D. (1974). fuinstream Psychology, New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Gould, S.J. (1981). The Mismeasure of Man, New York: Norton & Co.

Honzik, M.P. Macfarlane, J .W. & Allen, L. (1948). The stability of mental test performane between two and eighteen years. Journal of Experimental Education, 17, 309-324.

Kohler, W. (1947). Gestalt Psychology: An Introduction to New Concepts in Modern Psychology, New York: Liveright Press.

Oden, M.H. (1968). The fulfilltrent of pranise: 40 year follow-up of the Tet:man gifted group. Genetic Psychology Mnographs, 77, 3-93.

Sundberg, N.D. (1977). Assessment of Persons, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Young, S., Algozzine, B. & Sctmid, R. (1979). The effects of assigned attributes and labels on children's peer acceptance ratings, Education & Training of the Mentally Retarded, December.

Thomas S. Rue, M.A., NCC
March 4, 1991

The University of Iowa - College of Education
Psychological and Quantitative Foundations 31:163
The Adolescent and Young Adult

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