Stanford–Binet Test

The Stanford–Binet test is arguably the premier test of intelligence. The latest version of the test is the Stanford–Binet Intelligence Test, Fifth Edition (SB5). The original Stanford–Binet test resulted from the efforts of Lewis Terman at Stanford University. He based the test on the early intelligence tests of Alfred Binet and Theophile Simon from France near the advent of the 20th century.

Binet and Simon constructed the first intelligence test in 1905 with subsequent revisions in 1908 and1911. Educational researchers and psychologists in America subsequently became aware of the work of Binet and Simon. One such researcher was Terman, who became interested in composing a version of the test written in English and adapted to American individuals. In 1916, he prepared the first version of the test to assess intelligence for a wide range of individuals from young childhood to young adulthood. A related use of the test was the identification of individuals with limited intellectual abilities. Test administrators used the test to assess many European immigrants in the first two decades of the 20th century. Although those assessments were often invalid because many of the immigrants could neither read nor write English text, they still provided evidence for some of the inherent racial and cultural inferiority of certain immigrant groups such as emigrants from the Mediterranean region.

After the publication of the first edition of the test, Terman continued work on the test in an attempt to improve the predictive qualities of the test. Working in collaboration with Maud Merrill, Terman published a newer version of the Stanford–Binet test in 1937. The test had two parallel forms: one named Form L (for Lewis) and the other named Form M (for Maud). The correlation between total scores of the two forms was approximately .90, which attested to the reliability of the test. Merrill continued work on the Stanford–Binet test and constructed a new single form termed Form L-M that made use of items from Forms L and M. Her work and that of others led to the subsequent editions: the third edition in 1960, the fourth edition in 1986, and the fifth edition (SB5) in 2003.

There is an informative exposition of the SB5 on the Web site of the publisher, Thomson Nelson. There are 10 primary subtests in the SB5 that assess five factors of cognitive ability and two domains of [Page 942]intelligence. The five factors of cognitive ability are fluid reasoning, knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial reasoning, and working memory. Fluid reasoning relates to the capacity to abstract patterns. Knowledge relates to conceptual information. Quantitative reasoning relates to competency with arithmetic. Visual-spatial reasoning relates to facility with spatial transformations and visual forms. Working memory relates to the amount of new information that one can recall at any one time. The two domains of intelligence are nonverbal intelligence and verbal intelligence.

SB5 has a balanced, relatively simple structure relating subtests to domains of intelligence and factors of cognitive ability. Five of the 10 subtests assess nonverbal intelligence, and the other five assess verbal intelligence. For each of the five factors of cognitive ability, one can find 2 of the 10 subtests to assess that factor: a nonverbal subtest and a verbal subtest. For example, the two measures of fluid reasoning are the Nonverbal Fluid Reasoning subtest and the Verbal Fluid Reasoning subtest. The two measures of knowledge are the Nonverbal Knowledge subtest and the Verbal Knowledge subtest.

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