Test No. 03
STANDARD PROGRESSIVE MATRICES
Introduction
The standard progressive matrices was developed by J. C. Raven and J. Raven in the year 1938. It is a general mental ability test that is designed to measure a person’s ability to form perceptual relations and ability to reason by analogy independent of language and formal schooling. It looks at several aspects of intelligence such as clarity of though, ability to comprehend meaningless figures by recognizing the order and developing a systematic way of reasoning.
Intelligence is a psychological construct that is multifaceted in nature. It can therefore be defined in different ways. David Wechsler has provided one of the most well-known definitions of this construct. He has defined intelligence as the ‘the aggregate or global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, to think rationally and to deal effectively with his environment.
Different perspectives on intelligence:
Binet: The entire enterprise of intelligence testing began with Albert Binet’s contribution in France in the year 1902. Although he was the first individual to design an intelligence test, he did not give an explicit definition of intelligence. Instead, he spoke about the various components of intelligence such as reasoning, judgement, memory and abstraction.
Charles Spearman’s Factor-Analytic Theories of Intelligence:
Spearman proposed a theory of 2 factors; general ability ‘g’ and special ability ‘s’, which was based on the observation that those people who perform well on the tests of general intelligence usually perform well on tests for special abilities. While the g factor can be defined as the ability to reason, and solve problems or general intelligence’, the s factor can be defined as the ability to excel in certain areas, or specific intelligence (Cicarelli& Meyer, 2008).
Thurstone:
Thurstone (1938) believed that intelligence consisted of seven ‘primary abilities’. These included verbal comprehension,...