TY - JOUR AU - Pressey, S. L. AB - Discusses the nature and measurement of intelligence. The concept of general intelligence is for the writer, primarily, simply a working hypothesis which has been very helpful in the first attack upon problems of prognosis. It should continue as a working hypothesis until other hypotheses are found to work better. But investigators must not be so dominated by the concept of general intelligence that they fail seriously to consider other possibilities. Particularly to be avoided is the easy notion that a test of intelligence will solve all educational difficulties, that intelligence testing is the longed for short-cut method which will put everything in the schools finally and completely to rights. The theory is simply an assumption that prognosis problems can be generalized. It has been of great use in suggesting certain general lines of approach,- and in giving us courage to attack the otherwise impossibly complex prognosis problem. It will do equally great harm if it prevents analysis of the prognosis problem, now that methods are becoming sufficiently refined to make this possible. The safest, most empirical, and most practical method of making this analysis (to the writer's mind) is to study the relation of the tests to particular practical problems. From such study any general factors will, in time, emerge of themselves. TI - Intelligence and Its Measurement: A Symposium--VII. JF - Journal of Educational Psychology DO - 10.1037/h0069256 DA - 1921-03-01 UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/american-psychological-association/intelligence-and-its-measurement-a-symposium-vii-AQr3Mft6eT SP - 144 EP - 147 VL - 12 IS - 3 DP - DeepDyve ER -