Performance Tests of Intelligence.

Abstract

The major function of performance tests is to afford standardized settings for observation of the behavior of an individual in situations other than the type provided by verbal tests. This is not to say that verbal sampling is unimportant-the attention given it in earlier chapters attests the contrary.In a sense the term "performance tests" is a misnomer. Every test reaction, verbal or otherwise, is a performance. But since such tests originated in manipulative material, particularly form boards, it is easy to see how the term came to be applied. In the most narrow sense, performance tests are those which can be administered without any speech or the use of written words on the part of either the examiner or the subject. There are several well-standardized scales that conform to this requirement and are consequently useful in testing cases of speech defect, deafness, foreign language handicap, specific reading disability, lack of schooling, and extreme shyness.Most so-called performance tests, however, involve verbal instructions, but as Carter and Bowles say: ". . . Performance tasks differ from certain Binet-type items in that the former involve 'concrete' language situations in which the individual is in direct contact with the object to which reference is made. Such tasks tend to be less dependent upon language (oral or gestural) than the 'remote' language situation, which characterizes many Binet items in which the