Simon-Binet Scale - American Education

A pioneering system for measuring human intelligence based on scores achieved in a series of problems of graded difficulty, each corresponding to a different mental level. Developed in 1905 by French psychologists Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon, the Simon-Binet Scale was one of the first efforts to measure human intelligence using standardized tests. It inspired a massive effort by educators and psychologists in the United States to apply the concept of the SCALE to the measurement of intelligence, aptitude and achievement. Over the next 20 years, testmakers developed endless numbers of scales to measure every imaginable element of educational aptitude and achievement, including arithmetic, handwriting, spelling, drawing, reading, language ability, science skills, vocational skills and, of course, intelligence. In 1916, LEWIS M. TERMAN and his colleagues at Stanford University revised the Binet Scale, converting it into the STANFORD-BINET INTELLIGENCE TEST, a test for measuring what they called the intelligence quotient, or relationship of an individual’s mental and chronological ages.