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Increase IQ | The History of Intelligence Testing
Increase IQ | IQ Test History Introduction:
At Mind Sparke we believe that our brain's potential and therefore our IQ is not fixed and finite. Research shows that we can improve memory and focus, and increase intelligence with appropriate brain training. Our customers report significant IQ increases - in some cases more than 20 points, not by becoming better test takers, but by becoming more intelligent. (Interested in your IQ increase? Learn more...)
Please feel free to use this guide to IQ Testing and IQ Tests as a primer, a self-sufficient overview, or a launching point for your own research. It isn't intended to be exhaustive. And if you want to read more, you'll find links to other good resources.
Since you may not wish to read the entire text, and since there are three critical pieces of information for anyone contemplating the subject of intelligence, IQ increase, and IQ tests, I'll spell these out here:
Not all IQ tests are made equal -- If you want a reliable test score by whoch to determine your IQ and IQ increase, take a reliable test (one certified and administered by a reliable testing organization).
Your score does not define you -- A good IQ test measures certain mental aptitudes; these mental aptitudes correlate quite reliably to what we generally term intelligence; your score does not define you any more than how fast you can run.
Your intelligence is not fixed -- With the appropriate brain exercise, you can imcrease your IQ.
Please e-mail me with any comments or suggestions about this resource.
Increase IQ | The History of IQ Testing
 In 1903 the French government appointed Alfred Binet (and others) to a special commission to investigate how best to educate children with special needs (in 1899 the government had introduced a law requiring that all children attend school) 1. With the help of his assistant, Theodore Simon, Binet set about to devise a method to identify those children with special needs. The result was the Binet-Simon intelligence test or IQ test, the first of its kind. At the outset Binet believed that intelligence was not fixed. He would doubtless have applauded the recent advances that show we can increase IQ with appropriate brain training.
| Increase IQ | History of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales (Becker) |
| IQ Test Structure of the Stanford-Binet: 1916 to 2003 |
| IQ Test Edition |
IQ Test Structure |
Abilities Measured |
| 1916 |
Parallel vocabulary tests |
General intelligence |
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IQ Test | Single age scale |
|
| 1937 |
Form L vocabulary test |
General intelligence |
|
IQ Test | Parallel age scales |
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| 1960/1973 |
Vocabulary test |
General intelligence |
|
IQ Test | Single age scale |
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| 1986 |
Vocabulary routing test |
General intelligence |
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Subtest point scales |
Verbal Reasoning |
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Abstract/Visual Reasoning |
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Quantitative Reasoning |
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Short-Term Memory |
| 2003 |
Hybrid structure |
General intelligence |
|
Verbal routing test |
Knowledge |
|
Nonverbal routing test |
Fluid Reasoning |
|
Verbal and nonverbal age scales |
Quantitative Reasoning |
|
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Visual-Spatial Processing |
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|
Working Memory |
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|
Nonverbal IQ |
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|
Verbal IQ |
Stanford psychologist Lewis Terman immediately began adapting and supplementing Binet's IQ test with a view to producing an improved IQ test in English 2. He published his IQ test revisions and explanations in 1916. With five IQ test editions to date, the Stanford-Binet intelligence test and scale remains one of the most widely used and broadly accepted measures of intelligence.
Binet, a keen student of human individualities and potentials, considered the concept of fixed intelligence a "brutal pessimism," and feared that for some a low IQ test score might carry with it an indelible stigma. His fears proved well founded. Many of those who adopted and popularized Binet's approach to testing intelligence believed in intelligence as a fixed quantity and, worse yet, supported the idea that IQ tests should be administered for social ends with some even advocating dire measures to reduce the proportion of so called 'feebleminded' in the population.
 Henry Goddard, for instance, father of IQ testing in the United States, believed that a single recessive gene caused low intelligence. Goddard found Binet's IQ test as impressive as he found Binet the man unimpressive. Goddard privately favored forced sterilization of the mentally defective and publicly advocated programs of segregation. Goddard's views echoed those of the American public at the time, who worried that a disproportionate number of immigrants were mentally defective. Reacting to the public's concerns, the government invited Goddard to help IQ test immigrants at Ellis Island, a program that contributed to an exponential rise in the number of deportations.
In support of America's war effort at the time of the First World War Goddard served on a committee chaired by Robert Yerkes. The Committee on the Psychological Examination of Recruits set about to develop a group intelligence test to differentiate between recruits with low IQ and high IQ. The Army wanted this information to identify those particularly well-suited for special assignments and officers' training (McGuire, 1994). In 1919, the committee published its verbal Alpha IQ tests, and non-verbal Beta IQ tests (for the illiterate and those who didn't speak English).
 Perhaps more than any other single event, the work of Yerkes and his committee established the prominence and controversy that would be intelligence testing's long legacy.
As interest in intelligence testing burgeoned over the years, so too did the number and type of IQ tests. Some IQ tests provide measurably reliable results, other IQ tests less so, depending upon the degree of care and skill with which they have been compiled and normalized. In reputable IQ testing, there has been a concerted effort in the past three decades to address the loud and persistent criticisms of bias and inconsistency in intelligence testing. Redesigned in the fourth revision (1986), the Stanford-Binet IQ test, for instance, included a larger, more diverse and representative sample in an attempt to minimize the gender and racial bias criticized in earlier versions. With the fifth edition (2003) the Stanford-Binet IQ test can be used on anyone older than two years of age.
Despite its detractors and its limitations, testers, psychologists, educators, institutions, employers, and even the general public, have perpetuated the concept and practice of IQ testing as a thing of some value. At a fundamental level, the IQ test attempts to establish a repeatable method for identifying that which we all assess and measure in our daily lives -- how smart are we, and how smart are those with whom we come into contact. We all know that some people are consistently quicker and more astute than others. It doesn't define us, but it is a human quality in which we naturally have some degree of interest. And now that we can use brain training to increase IQ the way we and others perceive our intelligence is no longer unchangable.
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Increase IQ | Intelligence Test Resources
Increase IQ | The History of Intelligence Testing
Increase IQ | Intelligence Test Components
Increase IQ | Which IQ Test to Choose
Increase IQ | High IQ Organizations
Increase IQ | Intelligence Training
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