| Abstract: | In a series of articles in Education, the journal of the N.S.W. Teachers' Federation, from March to July 1983, Poulos, Junor and Andreoni severely criticized the use of group verbal general ability tests by the N.S.W. Department of Education. Their criticisms were manifold. Poulos in particular objects to “streaming” or ability grouping. He and Junor condemn general ability tests because they were so often sponsored in the U.S.A. in the second, third and fourth decades of this century by hereditarians and racists and were thought by such sponsors to measure an innate hereditary trait. They fail to mention contrary views propounded in the same period by other psychologists. They quite often follow Kamin in characterizing their bětes noites. All three authors deny the short-term predictive value in an educational setting of group ability tests and exaggerate the long-term influence in N.S.W. of pssessed IQs established in Year 6. The ACER which produces the tests under attack is subjected to a vicious ideological assault. A not very convincing case is made for parents being asked to give permission for the testing of their children; a better case is made for the giving of the results of the testing to the parents (though this is a task for the counsellor rather than the teacher). Andreoni, though rather cavalier with the evidence she uses, probably has a case in urging that the administration of verbal general ability tests to “migrant” children after only 4 years in the local schools is too soon for a valid assessment of current intellectual functioning without taking many other factors into account. |
