Deficiency and Delinquency: An Interpretation of Mental TestingMiner, James Burt
Science
Deficiency and Delinquency: An Interpretation of Mental Testing
Miner, James Burt
Children with mental disabilities; Juvenile delinquents; Mentally ill offenders; Psychological tests
In attempting to define the borderlines on these scales we might either
state the exact scale position in tenths of a year below which 0.5 and
1.5% of the cases fall, or we might merely attempt at present to state
the borderlines in rounded terms of years on the scale. The latter plan
is the one I have adopted for several reasons. The main reason is that I
wish to emphasize that these are still rough boundaries. Besides that,
however, a study of the results shows that the cases do not distribute
by separate tenths of a year so that exactly these percentages could be
picked off, without a questionable smoothing of the curves while the
rounded years approach these limits fairly well.
It seems to me that it is best at present to be carefully conservative
in describing these borderlines, so that I have chosen them from the
available data at the nearest rounded age position which is reasonably
sure not to catch more than these limiting percentages. Throughout the
tables I have also followed the published directions for the 1908 scale
in classing the person in the intellectual age group in which he finally
scores all or all but one of the tests. I recognize, of course, that
this is an arbitrary limit; but it is the limit fixed by the usual
printed directions going with the 1908 scale, which is the only one thus
far standardized for the immature on the percentage basis. For those who
wish to calculate other borderlines or reconstruct the individual tests
of the scale I have provided the complete data for each individual both
for the 1908 and 1911 scales in Table XXI, Appendix I. The table also
gives the exact ages and school grades of each child.
The summary of the results with the tests for those testing under XII is
given in Table III. Life-age[11] at the last birthday and not the
nearest life-age is used in the table. The children were all between
their 15th and 16th birthdays. Following the directions published with
the scales, the basal age for calculating the results in the table is
taken as the highest at which all or all but one test are passed for the
1908 scale, and the highest at which all were passed for the 1911 scale.
Two-tenths is allowed in the table for each test passed above the basal
age and 0.1 for an uncertain answer. The children were tested by the
long method, beginning with the mental-age group at which the child
could pass all the tests and continuing to that age group in which he
failed in all.
TABLE III—TEST BORDERLINES WITH RANDOMLY SELECTED MINNEAPOLIS
15-YEAR-OLDS
_Percentages of 653 living in these districts, 196 of whom had not
graduated from the eighth grade and were tested. Scored by the Kuhlmann
and Goddard 1908 Binet scale and by the Kuhlmann 1911 scale._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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