Alfred Binet

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Alfred Binet bigraphy, stories - psychologist and inventor of the first usable intelligence test

Alfred Binet : biography

July 8, 1857 – October 18, 1911

Alfred Binet (July 8, 1857 – October 18, 1911) was a French psychologist who invented the first usable intelligence test, known at the time as the Binet test and today referred to as the IQ test.O. L. Zangwill, ‘Binet, Alfred’, in R. Gregory, The Oxford Companion to the Mind (1987) p. 88 His principal goal was to identify students who needed special help in coping with the school curriculum. Along with his collaborator Théodore Simon, Binet published revisions of his intelligence scale in 1908 and 1911, the last appearing just before his death.

A further refinement of the Binet-Simon scale was published in 1916 by Lewis M. Terman, from Stanford University, who incorporated William Stern’s proposal that an individual’s intelligence level be measured as an (I.Q.). Terman’s test, which he named the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, formed the basis for one of the modern intelligence tests still commonly used today. They are all colloquially known as IQ tests.

Publications

  • (Paris, Alcan, 1886; English translation, 1899). Published in English as (Chicago, Open court publishing company, 1899).
  • (Paris, F. Alcan, 1887). Published in English as (New York, D. Appleton and company, 1888)
  • Perception intérieure (1887).
  • Etudes de psychologie expérimentale (1888).
  • (Paris: F. Alcan, 1892). Published in English as (New York : D. Appleton and company, 1896).
  • Introduction à la psychologie expérimentale (1894; with co-authors).
  • (1896).
  • Binet, A. & Henri, V. (Paris, Schleicher frères, 1898).
  • (Paris: Schleicher, 1900).
  • Etude expérimentale de l’intelligence (1903).
  • L’âme et le corps (1905). Published in English as (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & co. ltd.).
  • (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1906).
  • Binet, A. & Simon, T. (Paris, A. Colin, 1907). Published in English as (1907).
  • (Paris, E. Flammarion, 1909).
  • L’intelligence des imbecile (L’année psychologique, 15, 1–147, 1909). Published in English as (Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins company, 1916).

Alfred Binet was one of the founding editors of L’année psychologique, a yearly volume comprising original articles and reviews of the progress of psychology still in print.

Later career and the Binet-Simon Test

In 1899, Binet was asked to be a member of the Free Society for the Psychological Study of the Child. French education changed greatly during the end of the nineteenth century, because of a law that passed which made it mandatory for children ages six to fourteen to attend school. This group to which Binet became a member hoped to begin studying children in a scientific manner. Binet and many other members of the society were appointed to the Commission for the Retarded. The question became "What should be the test given to children thought to possibly have learning disabilities, that might place them in a special classroom?" Binet made it his problem to establish the differences that separate the normal child from the abnormal, and to measure such differences. L’Etude experimentale de l’intelligence (Experimental Studies of Intelligence) was the book he used to describe his methods and it was published in 1903.

Development of more tests and investigations began soon after the book, with the help of a young medical student named Theodore Simon. Simon had nominated himself a few years before as Binet’s research assistant and worked with him on the intelligence tests that Binet is known for, which share Simon’s name as well. In 1905, a new test for measuring intelligence was introduced and simply called the Binet–Simon scale. In 1908, they revised the scale, dropping, modifying, and adding tests and also arranging them according to age levels from three to thirteen.

In 1904 a French professional group for child psychology, La Société Libre pour l’Etude Psychologique de l’Enfant, was called upon by the French government to appoint a commission on the education of retarded children. The commission was asked to create a mechanism for identifying students in need of alternative education. Binet, being an active member of this group, found the impetus for the development of his mental scale.