What shall we say of the teacher or of the physician who has not even had this amount of instruction? The writer’s experience forces him to agree with Binet and with Dr. Goddard, that any one with intelligence enough to be a teacher, and who is willing to devote conscientious study to the mastery of the technique, can use the scale accurately enough to get a better idea of a child’s mental endowment than he could possibly get in any other way. It is necessary, however, for the untrained person to recognize his own lack of experience, and in no case would it be justifiable to base important action or scientific conclusions upon the results of the inexpert examiner. As Binet himself repeatedly insisted, the method is not absolutely mechanical, and cannot be made so by elaboration of instructions.
It is sometimes held that the examination and classification of backward children for special instruction should be carried out by the school physicians. The fact is, however, that there is nothing in the physician’s training to give him any advantage over the ordinary teacher in the use of the Binet tests. Because of her more intimate knowledge of children and because of her superior tact and adaptability, the average teacher is perhaps better equipped than the average physician to give intelligence tests.
Finally, it should be emphasized that whatever the previous training or experience of the examiner may have been, his ability to adjust to the child’s personality and his willingness to follow conscientiously the directions for giving the tests are important factors in his equipment.
Influence of the subject’s attitude.
One continually meets such queries as, “How do you know the subject did his best?” “Possibly the child was nervous or frightened,” or, “Perhaps incorrect answers were purposely given.” All such objections may be disposed of by saying that the competent examiner can easily control the experiment in such a way that embarrassment is soon replaced by self-confidence, and in such a way that effort is kept at its maximum. As for mischievous deception, it would be a poor clinicist who could not recognize and deal with the little that is likely to arise.
Cautions regarding embarrassment, fatigue, fright, illness, etc. are given in [Chapter IX]. Most of the errors which have been reported along this line are such as can nearly always be avoided by ordinary prudence, coupled with a little power of observation.[38] We must not charge the mistakes of untrained and indiscreet examiners against the validity of the method itself.
It is possibly true that even if the examiner is tactful and prudent an unfavorable attitude on the part of the subject may occasionally affect the results of a test to some extent, but it ought not seriously to invalidate one examination out of five hundred. The greatest danger is in the case of a young subject who has been recently arrested and brought before a court. Even here a little common sense and scientific insight should enable one to guard against a mistaken diagnosis.
The influence of coaching.
It might be supposed that after the intelligence scale had been used with a few pupils in a given school all of their fellows would soon be apprised of the nature of the tests, and so learn the correct responses. Experience shows, however, that there is little likelihood of such influence except in the case of a small minority of the tests. Experiments in the psychology of testimony have demonstrated that children’s ability to report upon a complex set of experiences is astonishingly weak. In testing with the Stanford revision a child is ordinarily given from twenty-four to thirty different tests, many of which are made up of three or more items. Of the total forty to fifty items the child is ordinarily able to report but few, and these not always correctly.
Such tests as memory for sentences and digits, drawing the square and diamond, reproducing the designs from memory, comparing weights and lines, describing and interpreting pictures, æsthetic comparison, vocabulary, dissected sentences, fables, reading for memories, finding differences and similarities, arithmetical reasoning, and the form-board test, are hardly subject to report at all. While almost any of the other tests might, theoretically, be communicated, there is little danger that many of them will be. It is assumed, of course, that the examiner will take proper precautions to prevent any of his blanks or other materials from falling into the hands of those who are to be examined.