Mental and Scholastic Tests
Revised Edition. :Author: Cyril Burt. Staples. 35s.
This volume, one of vital importance to all interested in the problems and implications of mental testing, makes a timely reappearance in a second and enlarged edition. Here we have a detailed description and analysis of the investigations carried out by the author during his years spent as Psychologist to the London County Council. The appointment of Dr Burt to that post in 1913 marked the beginning of a new era in the assessment by scientific methods of children’s intelligence and educational attainments. His own words, give in the preface to the volume, show what were the duties expected of him. “To assist teachers by developing means both for the examination or ascertainment, and for the education or training, of the various types of children needing special provision or attention.” This covered the study of subnormal pupils of all types (backward, dull, mentally defective, delinquent and nervous) as well as of the supernormal. But here, as in other spheres, the study of the normal and deviations from the normal complement each other and form part of the same investigation. To Dr Burt falls the distinction of having been the pioneer in introducing in this country, the now generally accepted methods for the assessment of intelligence and educational attainments of children of all types.
The volume is divided into three main sections or memoranda?the first dealing with Burt’s revision for English children of the original Binet-Simon Scale of Intelligence Testing ; the second with the theoretical validity of the results, and the third with Burt’s own tests of educational achievement.
In the new edition of this book, the main bulk of the work is unchanged, but-several additions or appendices of great importance and interest to present day practice have been inserted. In the first appendix the author discusses the nature of intelligence, with special reference to the distinctions between various types of theories. In the second appendix he gives a detailed factor analysis of the Binet-Scale. In the remaining ones he deals with such valuable topics as the accuracy of his own supplementary tests ; the contribution of schooling to the scores on the Binet Test ; the concept of mental age and some of the difficulties inherent in it ; and the vexed and very pertinent problem for present day psychologists and educationists of special abilities and the extent to which such abilities can be assessed in mental tests, and at what specific ages this assessment can be most accurately carried out.
It is a pity that Professor Burt has not yet been able to complete his revision of the Terman-Merrill Scale, and to include his results in the present volume. Let us hope that by the time the next edition appears, this will have been completed, for it will form a very valuable addition to what is still the most outstanding treatment of the whole subject of mental testing.
This is a book which should be in the hands of all teachers, school medical officers, education officers, psychologists and those concerned in the present day problem of ” educating the child according to his age, ability and aptitude G.H.K.
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