IQ Test Scale

Interesting Facts

Have you ever taken an IQ test? Have you ever wondered where the notion of intelligence and the IQ test scale comes from? So, what is intelligence and ‘intelligence quotient’? Intelligence is many things, defined by many parameters that mean different things across all people. Intelligence is basically the ability to use reason to solve problems and the ability to learn, understand, and deal with new and difficult situations. And, how you do this across a range of categories and other defining measurable gives you your intelligence quotient.

Just remember you can be smart without being knowledgeable, but by being smart you can become knowledgeable.

Intelligence tests were originally created to help identify children who needed help with their education. Intelligence quotient was created to relate a child’s actual age to their mental development. This gives a formula to measure intelligence where the intelligence quotient equals “100 times the mental age divided by the actual age” of the individual child. This is useful for children under the age of 16.

IQ Development

Over the years the issue of intelligence has evolved and been debated among psychiatrists across the world and years. Here are some interesting IQ test scale facts:

• In 1890, University of Pennsylvania was first to hold experimental psychology tests.

• In 1905, Binet-Simon’s test began identifying mentally retarded children so the French government could set up alternatives for their education.

• The traditional formula for measuring intelligence was intelligence quotient = mental age.

• Stanford-Binet IQ test scale measures average intelligence as being in the 85 to 115 range. According to this scale, there is only 1 percent of the world’s population with an IQ above 135.

• Around 50 percent of the world’s population has average intelligence of between 90 to 110 percent and 25 percent have a high or low IQ.

History of the IQ Test Scale

It is interesting to take a look at how and who were involved in the evolution of defining and measuring our intelligence. Here is a list of the major contributors to developing means to measure our intelligence:

Francis Galton (1822-1911)

• believed in restricting human breeding

• thought an individual’s mental abilities were genetic

• was the first to measure intelligence using questionnaires and surveys

James Cattell (1860-1944)

• was the first to hold experimental psychology tests

• used statistics to quantify data

Alfred Binet (1857-1911)

• developed the Binet-Simon scale, in 1905, that included 30 tasks that increased in difficulty as the individual works through the test

• used mental ages as a measurement of intelligence first

William Stern (1871-1938)

• in 1914, divided the mental age of a child by their real age to reach an intelligence quotient

Henry Goddard (1866-1957)

• led the US in the field of intelligence testing

• translated the Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale from French into English in 1908

• gave out 22,000 copies of the Binet-Simon test across the US between 1908 and 1918

• founded the first facility to study mental retardation in 1910

• advocated intelligence testing in schools

• was involved in writing the first US law for special education in 1911

• introduced the words idiot, moron, and imbecile as being acceptable descriptions of mental classifications

• said that half of the country’s immigrants were morons

• could tell a moron just by looking at a person

Lewis Terman (1877-1956)

• around 1906, he created the Stanford-Binet test as a revised version of the Binet-Simon Scale

• in 1916, came up with the idea to multiply the IQ score by 100 to get rid of decimal points

• was the first person to abbreviate intelligence quotient to IQ

• advocated the use of IQ testing in schools

• wrote various books, papers, and newspaper articles about intelligence and the use of IQ test scales

• took part in studies of genius

David Wechsler (1896-1981)

• based his tests on 10 or 11 performance and verbal tests collectively

• introduced the deviation quotient which is your IQ calculated on an individual’s mental capacity compared with average people of the same age

• tested both children and adults

By understanding the IQ test scale it lets you understand your score better to help you make good decisions about your career and life.