Lewis Terman

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Lewis Madison Terman (born 15 January 1877 in Johnson County, Indiana, died 21 December 1956 in Palo Alto, California) was a U.S psychologist, noted as a pioneer in cognitive psychology in the early 20th century at Stanford University. He is best known as the inventor of the Stanford-Binet IQ test. He was a prominent eugenicist and was a member of the Human Betterment Foundation.

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[edit] Biography

Terman received a B.S., B.Pd. (Bachelor of Pedagogy), and B.A. from Central Normal College in 1894 and 1898, and a B.A. and M.A. from the Indiana University Bloomington in 1903. He received his Ph.D. from Clark University in 1905.

He worked as a school principal in San Bernardino, California in 1905, and as a professor at Los Angeles Normal School in 1907. In 1910 he joined the faculty of Stanford University as a professor of cognitive psychology and remained associated with the university until his death. He served as chairman of the psychology department from 1922 to 1945.

During World War I, Terman served in the United States military while conducting psychological tests. In 1916 he published the Stanford Revision of the Binet-Simon Scale (1916; with Maud A. Merrill, 2d rev., 1937; 3d rev. 1960) [1], based on previous work by Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon of France. Terman promoted his test, known colloquially as the "Stanford-Binet" test, as an aid for developmentally disabled children. It is now used today, despite varying degrees of controversy, as a general intelligence test for adults.The test is currently in its fifth revision.

Terman's initial studies were even more troublesome. He administered English tests to Spanish-speakers and non-schooled African-Americans, concluding:

“High-grade or border-line deficiency… is very, very common among Spanish-Indian and Mexican families of the Southwest and also among negroes. Their dullness seems to be racial, or at least inherent in the family stocks from which they come… Children of this group should be segregated into separate classes… They cannot master abstractions but they can often be made into efficient workers… from a eugenic point of view they constitute a grave problem because of their unusually prolific breeding” (The Measurement of Intelligence, 1916, p. 91-92).

Terman's biased tests gave "scientific" proof that, for many Whites, justified racial discrimination, segregation, and even eugenics.

Unlike Binet and Simon, whose goal was to identify less able school children in order to aid them with the needed care required, Terman proposed using IQ tests to classify children and put them on the appropriate job-track. He believed IQ was inherited and was the strongest predictor of one's ultimate success in life. Terman had a self professed IQ of 180.

Terman adopted William Stern's suggestion that mental age/chronological age times 100 (to get rid of the decimal) be made the intelligence quotient or IQ. (NB: Most modern IQ tests calculate the intelligence quotient differently.)

In the 1920s, Terman initiated long-term studies of gifted children that are still in progress today. He found that gifted children did not fit the existing stereotypes often associated with them: they were not weak and sickly social misfits, but in fact were generally taller, in better health, better developed physically, and better adapted socially than other children. The children included in his studies were colloquially referred to as "Termites."

An interesting study on Terman and Termites -- Terman's Kids -- has been published by Joel N Shurkin.

Terman later joined the Human Betterment Foundation, a Pasadena-based eugenics group founded by E.S. Gosney in 1928 which had as part of its agenda the promotion and enforcement of compulsory sterilization laws in California.

Lewis Terman was the father of Frederick Terman, who, as provost of the Stanford University, greatly expanded the science, statistics and engineering departments that helped catapult Stanford into the ranks of the world's first class educational institutions, as well as spurring the growth of Silicon Valley.

[edit] Publications

  • The Measurement of Intelligence (1916)
  • The Use of Intelligence Tests (1916)
  • The Stanford Achievement Test (1923)
  • Genetic Studies of Genius (1925, 1947, 1959)
  • Autobiography of Lewis Terman (1930)

[edit] Recognition

Stanford University has an endowed professorship in his honor. Holders have included

[edit] References

[edit] External links