Testing: The Growing Unimportance of IQs

After four years of doing without schooling, Negro junior high students in Virginia's Prince Edward County returned to class in September 1963. In the course of the next 18 months, the average IQ of those children rose 18 points. In St. Louis, a cultural enrichment program in slum schools raised the pupils' average IQ by 11.5 points in four years.

Parents of these children were understandably proud that their kids had shown progress. Yet, they were puzzled too. Like most people, they were under the impression that an IQ is a measure of an inherent trait called intelligence, and that it never varies; that it is either a badge or a blemish to be worn indelibly for all time. As it happens, those notions are largely myths that for years have caused parents needless concern.

"Gumption Quotient." First of all, as the results in Prince Edward County and St. Louis showed, intelligence test scores do vary. But more to the point is the fact that IQ tests measure not intelligence but what the experts call the "learned responses" of an individual to a series of questions or problems. Thus, IQ serves chiefly to give teachers some idea of a youngster's ability to do academic work. Even here, many teachers make the mistake of using IQ to predict a child's future achievements.

Educators' files are filled with records of kids who excelled in IQ tests but who failed to live up to expectations. "A child may score in the 140s and yet be too darned lazy to read a book or do any of the tough groundwork, and he'll fail at school," says the National Merit Scholarship Corporation's John Stalnaker. "Another kid may score much lower in the tests but by sheer devotion to his work, he'll succeed."

The standard IQ tests, agrees Charles O. Ruddy, associate superintendent of schools in Boston, give no clue to a student's "gumption quotient." Moreover, it is not uncommon to find an error of ten points or more in many IQ scores. For example, a child with 120 may not necessarily be brighter than one with 110 or dumber than one with 130.*

Nowadays, the classic Stanford-Binet and the Wechsler-Bellevue IQ tests are given only when educators need to pinpoint the mental ability of someone who seems unusually gifted or retarded and so needs special guidance. They must be administered by an expert and require a session of one hour for each student. Much more common are group intelligence tests (experts prefer to call them "scholastic aptitude" tests) such as the Otis Mental Ability test, which comes in an all-picture version for Grades 1 to 4 and with multiple choice questions for Grades 4 to 9 (see cut).