An Analysis of the Binet Test of Naming Words
- Author:
Edna Willis McElwee
New Yorlc City Schools
Several years ago Terman 1 made a study of the Binet test of naming words. He was interested in the number of words given, the speed with which the words were given and the relation between the number of words and mental age.
The purpose of this study was to analyze the responses given by children to the Binet test of naming words first as to the natuie of the words and then as to their association sequence. The Binet test of naming words was given to 200 public school children in Cleveland, Ohio as part of the Stanford Binet Intelligence Examination. The chronological ages of the group ranged from eight years to seventeen years with a median age of twelve years and sixth months. The I.Qs. ranged from 50 to 110 with a median I.Q. of 70. There were 90 children with a mental age between eight and nine years and 110 children with a mental age between nine and ten years. The actual responses given by the children were taken down in shorthand by the examiner. An alphabetical tabulation was then prepared, making it possible to ascertain how many times each word was repeated by the group.
The words occurring most frequently are given in the order of their frequency in the following table. The table also shows the per cent of the entire group giving each word. Word Per cent Word Per cent Word Per cent d,?g 84 man 32 cow 22 chair 80 pen 32 clock 22 house 68 school 31 hair 22 book 60 blocks 30 orange 22 desk 58 horse 29 street cat 56 apple 28 stockings 21 P^il 55 ink 27 floor 20 ?tove 43 clouds 26 girl 2U tree 42 dress 26 hat 20 paper 40 fire 26 lion 2U sh??s 37 flower 25 lamp 20 ta.blf 36 boy 24 play 20 *?dow 35 church 24 picture 20 glasses 34 ra^ …23 wood 20 haPPy 34 watch.’. 23 wire 20 light 33 box 23 i Terman, Lewis M., Some Data on the Binet Test of Naming Words, J. of Educ. Psychol., 1911, 2, 29-35.
It is significant that with the exception of happy (a word used to illustrate the test) all the words are names of concrete objects within the child’s experience. Many of these objects were visible in the school room, or could be seen from the window. All the lists of words were then carefully scrutinized for association sequence. In the majority of cases little or no association was apparent among the words. The lists of words which showed some form of association presented considerable variety as to the type of association sequence. All the illustrations are taken from the actual responses given by the children in the study. The most common form of association was to give a list of things in the same class such as names of animals or things to eat or things to wear. One of these associations groups might be followed by another or they might be intermingled or they might be connected in some way. List I. An association group of things to wear followed by a group of parts of the body.
dress eyes shoes neck stockings face hat mouth hair nose List 11. An association group of things to wear intermingled with a group of parts of the body. dresses body coats sweater hats stockings shoes hair hands fingers face handkerchief List 111. A large association group of names of things to eat broken by a smaller association group. bread milk soup hash potatoes thread carrots sew spaghetti needle horse radish tomatoes meat pepper List IV. An association group of names of colors and of writing materials connected by a rhyme. black ink purple cork red red yellow pen pink paper
List V. An association group not of things in the same class, but where there is a logical sequence between each word and the following word. old telephone young wires people lights house electricity
Summary
The Binet test of naming words was given to 200 public school children in Cleveland, Ohio. The actual responses of the children were taken down in short hand. Almost all of the words given were the names of concrete objects. Only a few of the lists of words contained an association sequence. The most common type of association was a group of names of things belonging to the same class.
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