Anne Anastasi

Anne Anastasi (December 19, 1908-May 4, 2001) was an American Differential Psychologist, known as "test guru", did an extensive examination of issues related to test construction, test misuse, misinterpretation and cultural bias.


Influences
Student of: H. L. Hollingworth
Influenced by: Spearman
Time Period: Contemporary Explorations

Education:
Educated at home by her grandmother and a private tutor until age 9
Dropped out of high school after only two months
Two years at the Rhodes Preparatory School in Manhattan (1922-1923)
Entered Barnard College at the age of 15. Graduated at the age of 19 (A.B. in Psychology, 1928)
Columbia University (Ph.D. in Psychology, 1929)

Career:
Barnard College, Instructor in Psychology (1930-1939)
Queens College, Assistant Professor and Chairperson of the Psychology Department, (1939-1947)
Fordham University, Associate Professor of Psychology, (1947-1951); Professor (1951-1979); Professor Emeritus (and awarded Honorary Doctor of Science Degree, 1979)
President of the Eastern Psychological Association (1946-1947)
President of the APA Division 1, General Psychology (1956-1957)
President of the APA Division 5, Evaluation, Measurement and Statistics (1965-1966)
President of the American Psychological Foundation (1965-1967)
Third female president of the American Psychological Association (1972)
Definition of Intelligence

"Intelligence is not a single, unitary ability, but rather a composite of several functions. The term denotes that combination of abilities required for survival and advancement within a particular culture (Anastasi, 1992, p. 613). ”

Major Contributions:

Known as the "test guru"
Extensive examination of issues related to test construction, test misuse, misinterpretation and cultural bias
Argued against the strictly hereditarian position; emphasized the role of experiential, environmental and cultural influences on intelligence test scores
More than 150 publications, including two classic textbooks: Psychological Testing (1st edition 1954; 7th edition, 1996) and Differential Psychology (1st edition 1937; 4th edition, 1981)

Ideas and Interests
Anne Anastasi grew up in New York City, the only child in a small Sicilian family. Her father died when she was an infant, and she was raised by her mother, grandmother and uncle. Anastasi described her grandmother as a domineering woman who maintained stewardship over most issues in family life, including young Anne's education. She believed herself to be a true aristocrat, and categorized all those whom she met as either aristocrats or peasants (Anastasi, 1989) Anastasi's uncle was a man of superior classical education, but he was ill prepared for real-world employment. In contrast, Anastasi's mother was a practical, resourceful woman, and it was she who shouldered the burden of supporting the family (Reznikoff & Procidano, 2001; Sexton & Hogan, 1990). Anastasi believed that the juxtaposition of these three personalities might have been a reason for her later professional interest in the psychology of individual differences (Anastasi, 1989). Anastasi's grandmother disapproved of the boisterous neighborhood children, and insisted that she be educated at home (Anastasi, 1989). When she was nine years old, a private tutor convinced her grandmother to allow her to attend a public elementary school. Anastasi enjoyed her early schooling, but her high school experience was disappointing. The building was overcrowded, rundown and very far from her home. She dropped out after only two months (Anastasi, 1972). At the suggestion of a family friend, she decided to skip high school entirely. She spent two years preparing for the college entrance examinations, and was admitted to Barnard College at the age of fifteen (Anastasi, 1972; Reznikoff & Procidano, 2001; Sexton & Hogan, 1990). Anastasi entered college as a math major. During her sophomore year she enrolled in an elective psychology class taught by H.L. Hollingworth. His enthusiasm and intensity impressed her, as did his sharp criticisms of sloppy research practices (Anastasi, 1989; Sexton & Hogan, 1990). Later the same year, Anastasi read a Charles Spearman article on correlation coefficients, (Spearman, 1904) and realized that she did not need to abandon mathematics to pursue her emerging interest in psychology (Anastasi, 1972, 1989; Reznikoff & Procidano, 2001). She switched majors and completed a bachelor's degree in psychology at the age of nineteen. After graduation from Barnard, she entered Columbia University, requesting that her undergraduate work be accepted in lieu of a master's degree. She completed her doctorate in two years (Anastasi, 1972, 1989). Anne Anastasi's research focused on understanding and measuring the factors underlying the development of individual differences in psychological traits (Anastasi, 1972, 1989). She argued against the strictly hereditarian position, emphasizing the role of experiential and environmental influences on intelligence test scores and psychological development. She stressed that intelligence test scores are not pure measures of innate ability: ...not only does the nature of one's antecedent experiences affect the degree of differentiation of "intelligence" into distinct abilities, but it also affects the particular abilities that emerge, such as verbal, numerical, and spatial abilities. Thus, experiential factors affect not only the level of the individual's intellectual development, but also the very categories in terms of which his abilities may be identified (Anastasi, 1972). Anastasi believed that most claims about "culture-free" and "culture-fair" testing are untrue. She stressed that different cultures have different concepts of what an "intelligent person" is, and that traditional psychometric tests measure only those skills which are valued in academic and work circles within modern, industrialized social contexts. The dominant intelligence test paradigm presupposes that intelligence tests should assess the individual's ability to succeed in this environment. However, the value of these tests is ephemeral; new tests will have to be developed as society advances and new technology demands cultivation of different cognitive skills. Anastasi emphasized that there is an alternative to this testing model. Other assessments could be developed to measure "how well individuals have acquired skills and knowledge valued in [their own] culture." She believed that although both types of tests can be valid as intelligence tests, the way in which intelligence is defined would necessarily be different for each construct (Anastasi, 1981). Anastasi's research increased awareness of what intelligence tests should and should not be used for. She cautioned test users against misinterpreting results, emphasizing that intelligence is changeable over time, and that intelligence (not just intelligence test scores) can improve with experience. Therefore, intelligence test scores should never be used to label a student indelibly (Anastasi, 1992): Tests can serve a predictive function only insofar as they indicate to what extent the individual has acquired the prerequisite skills and knowledge for a designated criterion performance. What persons can accomplish in the future depends not only on their present intellectual status, as assessed by the test, but on their subsequent experience (Anastasi, 1981).According to Anastasi, intelligence tests can do three things:
-They permit a direct assessment of prerequisite intellectual skills demanded by many important tasks in our culture.
-They assess availability of a relevant store of knowledge or content also prerequisite for many educational and occupational tasks.
-They provide an indirect index of the extent to which the individual has developed effective learning strategies, problem-solving techniques and work habits and utilized them in the past. (Anastasi, 1981)
When intelligence test scores are used properly, they are valuable descriptive tools that allow teachers and counselors to determine a student's current level of academic performance. Although an intelligence test score cannot tell us why a student scored as he did, the score can make it easier to meet a student at his level, and to design educational experiences that will improve intelligence. (Anastasi, 1981).

Selected Publications

Anastasi, A. (1981). Differential psychology. (4th ed.). New York: Macmillan.

Anastasi, A. (1983). Psychological testing. In C.E. Walker (Ed.), Handbook of clinical psychology: Theory, research and practice (Vol.1, pp.420-444). Homewood, Ill: Dow-Jones Irwin.

Anastasi, A. (1983). What do intelligence tests measure? In S. B. Anderson & J. S. Helmick (Eds.), On educational testing: Intelligence, performance standards, test anxiety, and latent traits (pp.5-28). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Anastasi, A. (1984). Aptitude and achievement tests: The curious case of the indestructible strawperson. In B. S. Plake (Ed.), Social and technical issues in testing: Implications for test construction and usage (pp. 129-140).Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Anastasi, A. (1985). Psychological testing: Basic concepts and common misconceptions. In A. M. Rogers & C. J. Scheirer (Eds.), The G. Stanley Hall Lecture Series (Vol. 5, pp.87-120). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Anastasi, A. (1986). Intelligence as a quality of behavior. In R. J Sternberg & D. K. Detterman (Eds.), What is intelligence? Contemporary viewpoints on its nature and definition (pp. 19-21). Norwood NJ: Ablex.

Anastasi, A. (1996). Psychological testing (7th ed.). New York: Macmillian.

References

Anastasi, A. (1972). Reminiscences of a differential psychologist. In T. S. Krawiec (Ed.), The psychologists (pp.3-37). London: Oxford University Press.

Anastasi, A. (1981). Diverse effects of training on tests of academic intelligence. In B. F. Green (Ed.), Issues in testing: Coaching, disclosure, and ethnic bias. (pp.5-20). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Anastasi, A. (1989). Anne Anastasi. In G. Lindzey (Ed.), History of psychology in autobiography: Vol. 7. (pp.1-37). Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Anastasi, A. (1992). What counselors should know about the use and interpretation of psychological tests. Journal of Counseling and Development, 70 (5), 610-615.

Reznikoff, M., & Procidano, M. (2001). Anne Anastasi. American Psychologist, 56 (10), 816-817.

Sexton, V. S., & Hogan, J. D. (1990). Anne Anastasi. In A. N. O'Connell and N. F. Russo (Eds.), Women in psychology: A bio-bibliographic sourcebook. (pp.13-22). New York: Greenwood Press.

Spearman, C. (1904). "General intelligence" objectively determined and measured. American Journal of psychology, 15, 201-293.

intelltheory.com

Florence Goodenough

As one who greatly benefited from meeting the great minds of the 20th century, Florence Goodenough (1886-1959) is an American psychologist, student of Terman, who was influenced L. S. Hollingworth work. She was one of the first to question the use of IQ, as you will see reading further

Student of: Terman
Influenced by: L. S. Hollingworth
Time Period: The Great Schools' Influence

Education
Normal School in Millersville, Pennsylvania (B.Pd. [Bachelor of Pedagogy], 1908)
Columbia University in New York (B.S., 1920; M.A., 1921) - Under Leta Hollingworth
Stanford University (Ph.D., 1924) - Under Lewis Terman

Career
Teacher (1908-1920)
Director of Research in the Rutherford and Perth Amboy, New Jersey, public schools (1920-1921)
Minneapolis Child Guidance Clinic (1924-1925)
Institute of Child Welfare at University of Minnesota, Professor (1925-1947)
Professor Emeritus (1947-1959)

Major Contribution
Developed Goodenough Draw-A-Man and Minnesota Preschool Scale tests, as well as several other alternative tests of intelligence
Published 9 textbooks, 26 research studies, numerous articles, and wrote Handbook of Child Psychology
Key researcher in Terman's longitudinal study on giftedness.

Ideas and Interests
    Florence Goodenough spent a good portion of her intellectual life developing tools for assessing intelligence in young children. She strongly believed that IQ could be reliably measured with significant stability for most preschoolers. In 1926, she introduced her Draw-a-Man test in a book entitled Measurement of Intelligence by Drawings (1926). This nonverbal test of intelligence was intended for children aged two to thirteen and required children to draw a picture of a man. Although the test only took about ten minutes to administer (significantly less time than other nonverbal tests of the time), it was highly reliable and it correlated well with standard IQ tests of the time. The Draw-a-Man test gained immediate popularity and even twenty years after its introduction it was listed as the third most frequently used test by clinical psychologists. The test was revised in the late 1940s with the assistance of Dale Harris and is now known as the Goodenough-Harris drawing test. The revised test featured a new standardization, a drawing quality score, and the Draw-a-Woman test.
    After developing the Draw-a-Man test and focusing on nonverbal tests of intelligence, Goodenough shifted her attention to more traditional verbal tests of intelligence for children. She was particularly interested in developing a new assessment tool , based on the Stanford Binet test, which could be administered to younger children. The new scale, the Minnesota Preschool Scale, contained both language and nonlanguage scores and was compact and inexpensive. Although not as well-known as the Draw-a-Man test, the Minnesota Preschool Scale was being used into the 1940s.
    Aside from developing tools for assessing intelligence, Goodenough was also one of the first individuals to question the use of the Intelligence Quotient (IQ). She contended that mental age may not have the same meaning for all children and that a better way of reporting results was in the form of percentages. She claimed that percentages, in addition to being more easily understood by lay people, were more useful because they would allow comparison between children who were the same chronological age.
    Although her position on the use of the ratio IQ may seem controversial, Goodenough confronted the most controversy of her career by taking a strong position on the classic nature vs. nurture debate surrounding intelligence. Goodenough maintained that intelligence is a stable entity and challenged the assertion that the environment plays a key role in children's intelligence scores.

Publications

The Measurement of Intelligence by Drawings (1926)
The Stanford Achievement Test (1923)
Genetic Studies of Genius (1925, 1947, 1959)
Mental Testing: Its History, Principles, and Applications (1949)
Exceptional Children (1956)

Bibliography:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Goodenough
http://www.feministvoices.com/florence-goodenough/
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/goodenough.htm
http://www.intelltheory.com/

Leta Stetter Hollingworth

Leta Stetter Hollingworth (1886-1939) was an educational psychologist. She was a student of
E. L. Thorndike, at University of Nebraska-Lincoln (B.A., 1906), then studied at Teachers College (M.A. in Education, 1913; Ph.D. in Educational Psychology, 1916) - Under E. L. Thorndike
Career:
Assistant principal of School District No. 6, Saline County, Nebraska
Teacher at McCook High School
Clearing-House for Mental Defectives (she administered Binet tests) (1913)
Clinical Psychologist at Bellevue Hospital (1915)
Consulting Psychologist to New York Police Department (1915)
Teachers College, Columbia University -- Professor of Educational Psychology

Major Contribution:
Wrote first comprehensive text on the gifted
Taught first college course on the gifted
Commenced one of the first systematic studies of children with intelligence quotients (IQ) above 180

    Although Leta Stetter Hollingworth is perhaps best known for her work with exceptional children (discussed below), she also performed pioneering work in the field of psychology of women, which greatly overlaped with issues of intelligence and intellectual ability. In the early 1900s, there were two commonly held beliefs regarding women that Hollingworth scientifically. First, it was generally accepted by many members of society (particularly those in power) that women were mentally incapacitated during menstruation. Based on this belief, many employers would not hire women because they believed it was not possible for them to be as productive as men and would not be able to handle major responsibilities due to their monthly impairments. Hollingworth empirically tested this hypothesis and found that women's performance on several cognitive, perceptual, and motor tasks was similar to that of males, even during menstration.

    A second premise that sparked the interest of Hollingworth was the variability hypothesis which asserted that women as a group were more similar than men as a group; that is, men have a much wider range of talents as well as defects than do women. This proposition was used to explain why there were more men who were geniuses as well as more men who were mentally deficient and in institutions. The correlate of this premise is that women will never be able to achieve the highest achievements and would have to settle for mediocrity. In a large study, Hollingworth examined 1,000 male newborns and 1,000 female newborns and found no greater inherent variability in males than in females.

    In the 1920s, Hollingworth's efforts shifted to the study of children, particularly exceptional children. Much of her work on giftedness was being conducted at the same time as Terman's study on giftedness. While the two individuals never met, they had great respect for each other and the work each was doing. Many of Terman's beliefs about giftedness coincided with those held by Hollingworth, but they diverged on one major point. Terman believed that giftedness was inherited and was only interested in defining and describing giftedness. Although Hollingworth acknowledged the role of inheritance in giftedness, she also believed that educational and environmental factors played key roles in the development of potential. Resultantly, Hollingworth was more interested in how to properly nurture giftedness and how to appropriately educate gifted individuals.

    One of Hollingworth's most notable studies regarding giftedness was sparked in November, 1916, when she saw for the first time a child test above 180 IQ on the Stanford-Binet (S-B). She became intrigued, and over the span of the next 23 years was able to find 11 other children in the New York City region with such intellectual giftedness and attempted and in-depth study of their genius. Knowing that she would never live long enough to see all of the children well into their adult lives, she meticulously attempted to build a framework upon which great future research and findings could be accomplished. She deserves much credit for pioneering into such a challenging field. Those who test above 180 IQ (S-B) are characterized by a strong desire for personal privacy, seldom volunteer personal information, do not like to have attention called to their families and homes, and are afraid of the potential ramifications of being labeled as "special" in society. Amidst all of these concerns, Leta S. Hollingworth conducted research consistent both with scientific interest and with the preservation of personal privacy in mind. She laid a foundation for the study of truly gifted children.

Publications
The Psychology of Subnormal Children (1920)
Special Talents and Defects (1923)
Gifted Children: Their Nature and Nurture (1926)
The Psychology of the Adolescent (1928)
Children Above 180 IQ Stanford-Binet: Origin and Development (1942)