Review of This Issue

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THIS REVIEW of the preceding chapters is an innovation. Whether or not it will establish a new and vital tradition is problematical. One possibility is that this will become a unique chapter, since perhaps never again will an editor be able to find someone with the temerity implicitly to advertise himself as the indefatigable reader, the generalist-yet-expert, and the informed critic of all that an issue includes-in this instance all that is implied by that omnibus term testing. However, if a tradition is to be established, the purpose of a critical chapter such as this should be defined. A chapter of this kind clearly should not be a recitation of failures-failure to incorporate someone's study, failure to omit someone's study, or failure to place someone's study properly in the organization of the issue. Similarly, cavils about overlap, the order of the chapters, or the peculiar biases of certain contributors should be omitted. Criticism, in its narrow sense, should be a minor component. The chapter should, however, present a judgment of the extent to which the issue provides more than an abstracting service-valuable as that service may be. The paragraphs that follow are an attempt to illustrate possible major components. Although it is sometimes pedantic to cite history, such citations may be pertinent. For example, let us recall the early work of Binet and Simon and of Terman and ask what is being done now, as seen by the contributors to this issue, that is different from this early work. It is true that we have some different terms, such as creativity, in active use. It also is true that we have factors-and that conceiving of factors as plural seems to depart somewhat from the early Binet-Simon-Terman tradition. Further, we have a considerable amount of machinery that was not widely known or not available to earlier workers: item-analysis procedures, computation aids, measures of relationship, and the like. Nevertheless, we seem to be studying many of the same problems in essentially the same way. For example, Binet and Simon (1916) reported, in connection with their 1911 scale, studies of the relation of intellectual level to scholastic standing (p. 288-92), of the effect of repetitions (p. 292-94), of the methods teachers use to judge intelligence (p. 297-316), and of the relation betwen intelligence and social background (p. 316-29). On this last point they cited data, not only from their own investigations, but also from investigations in Belgium and England. Similarly, Terman (1916, p. 65-77) reported studies of retesting; of sex differences; of the relation of the newly derived IQ to social class; and of the relation of this IQ to school work, grade progress, and teachers' estimates. Terman also analyzed his tests in relation to the