Intelligence and Education

Dear Colleagues,

The history of intelligence research and measurement is closely linked with educational interests. For example, Spearman’s (1904) first article on general intelligence is in fact largely based on school grade data, and Binet’s initiatives to measure intelligence were inspired by educational concerns. Whereas intelligence and its measurement is still a topic in school psychology and educational psychology, it no longer seems of interest in the field of education. In the domain of educational measurement, the notion of ability is omnipresent, but the notion of intelligence is nearly absent. Yet measures of academic achievement can be highly correlated with some measures of intelligence, for a variety of reasons including possibly spurious relationships.

With this Special Issue we would like to discuss when and why intelligence has disappeared as a potentially interesting notion and how it is being replaced with other notions. Is intelligence considered an invalid notion, a useless notion, an irrelevant notion, a misleading notion? Still, the psychometric models and the process models used for educational measurement and intelligence are very similar, and both fields share the notion of ability. In a similar way, in the domain or learning and development, tasks are being used which are very similar to the tasks presented in intelligence tests.   

The motivation for the Special Issue is not to promote intelligence as a notion in education. Instead, we invite manuscripts explaining why the notion of intelligence is absent in the domain of education, for good reasons or for not so good reasons. What would be the risks and advantages of re-introducing the notion of intelligence, for the different levels of education (from basic school to college)? Can the field of educational measurement learn from intelligence measurement and vice versa? Some highly interesting developments in the field of education with links to intelligence are taking place, for example, in the context of the International Society for Mind, Brain, and Education. Is this development and related trends the future of intelligence related research in education?

Prof. Dr. Paul De Boeck
Prof. Dr. Kathleen Scalise
Guest Editors

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