Intelligence and its Assessment

You often come across the term intelligence in everyday life. We generally use this term whenever we find somebody doing something very good which goes beyond our expectation. Intelligence is one of the psychological terms used quite frequently in various settings (e.g. school). Who can be called ‘Intelligent’? The one who gets highest marks in exams? That person who earns many educational degrees? Is the doctor more intelligent, or the engineer or the lawyer or the artist?

One may answer these questions in different ways depending on the meaning of intelligence. Intelligence is much more than getting degrees. Intelligence refers to “multifaceted abilities of people”. It gets expressed in many ways. It comes in many forms. Some people are good in studies, some are good in repairing machines, some are good in acting and some are great in sports. People are very good in one subject and average in some other. The most important thing is that ‘intelligence’ is ‘functional’. It is ‘used’ to do something and to achieve something.

In psychology, the term intelligence has been defined in many ways. One of the earliest definitions of intelligence was given by Binet and Simon in 1905 who defined it as the “ability to judge well, to understand well, and to reason well”.

One of the most popular definitions of intelligence was given by Wechsler who defined it as “the aggregate or global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, to think rationally, and to deal effectively with the environment”.

Gardner defined intelligence as “the ability or skill to solve problems or to fashion products which are valued within one or more cultural settings”. He used the term ‘Multiple Intelligences’ and advocated that there are eight types of intelligences such as Linguistic, Logical-mathematical, Spatial, Musical, Bodily-kinaesthetic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, and Naturalistic.

Though the first attempt to measure intelligence was made by Sir Francis Galton a more systematic approach was developed by Alfred Binet, a French Psychologist. In 1905, Binet gave the concept of Mental Age (MA) which refers to an individual’s level of mental development relative to the environment in which he or she lives.

The term Intelligence Quotient (IQ) was first devised by William Stern, a German psychologist, in 1912. IQ is defined as mental age divided by chronological age, and multiplied by 100.

IQ = MA/CA × 100

For example if the mental of a child is 12 and his or her Chronological age is 8 then the IQ of the child would be 150.

The intelligence test developed by Binet was revised subsequently and in 1916 the test was given the name of Stanford - Binet test of intelligence. One of the most popular and widely used tests of intelligence is Wechsler Scales of Intelligence. These scales have been designed for individuals of different age groups such as Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) for adults and Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) for children between the age of 6 and 16 years.

Intelligence tests are of two kinds - Individual test and Group test. An individual test of intelligence can be administered to a single individual at a given time whereas a group test is administered to more than one individual at a time.

On the basis of nature of items, intelligence tests are Verbal, Non-verbal, and Performance Tests. A verbal test requires understanding of written words. Hence it can be administered to literate individuals only. In non-verbal test, pictures or illustrations are used as item of the test. Performance tests are made up of certain concrete tasks. Both non-verbal and performance tests can be administered to literate and illiterate individuals.