Testing for Competence Rather than for Intelligence
Where Do We Go from Here?
Criticisms of the testing movement are not new. The Social Science Research Council Committee on Early Identification of Talent made some of these same points nearly IS years ago (McClelland, Baldwin, Bronfenbrenner, & Strodtbeck, 19S8). But the beliefs on which the movement is based are held so firmly that such theoretical or empirical objections have had little impact up to now. The testing movement continues to grow and extend into every corner of our society. It is unlikely that it can be simply stopped, although minority groups may have the political power to stop it. For the tests are clearly discriminatory against those who have not been exposed to the culture, entrance to which is guarded by the tests. What hopefully can happen is that testers will recognize what is going on and attempt to redirect their energies in a sounder direction. The report of the special committee on testing to the College Entrance Examination Board (1970) is an important sign that changes in thinking are occurring—if only they can be implemented at a practical level. The report's gist is that a wider array of talents should be assessed for college entrance and reported as a profile to the colleges. This is a step in the right direction if everyone keeps firmly in mind that the criteria for establishing the "validity" of these new measures really ought to be not grades in school, but "grades in life" in the broadest theoretical and practical sense.
But now I am on the spot. Having criticized what the testing movement has been doing, I feel some obligation to suggest alternatives. How would I do things differently or better? I do not mind making suggestions, but I am well aware that some of them are as open to criticism on other grounds as the procedures I have been criticizing. So I must offer them in a spirit of considerable humility, as approaches that at least some people might be interested in pursuing who are discouraged with what we have been doing. My goal is to brainstorm a bit on how things might be different, not to present hard evidence that my proposals are better than what has been done to date. How would one test for competence, if I may use that word as a symbol for an alternative approach to traditional intelligence testing?

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