Item response theory

Linguistics

Mathematics education

Cognitive psychology

Philosophy

Neuroscience

Pure mathematics

Biology

Statistics

Social psychology

Interpretation (philosophy)

Intelligence quotient

Cognition

Field (mathematics)

Developmental psychology

Standardized test

Computer science

Psychometrics

TRACE (psycholinguistics)

Paleontology

Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

Human intelligence

Test (biology)

Psychology

Mathematics

Epistemology

Test score

Programming language

Thurstone scale

Applied Measurement in Education

Charles Spearman and L. L. Thurstone were pioneers in the field of intelligence. They not only developed methods to assess and understand intelligence, but also developed theories about its structure and function. Methodologically, their approaches were not that distinct, but their theories of intelligence were philosophically very different – and this difference is still seen in modern approaches to intellectual assessment. In this article, we describe their theories of intelligence and then trace how these theories have influenced the development and use of intelligence instruments, paying particular attention to score interpretation.

The One and the Many: Enduring Legacies of Spearman and Thurstone on Intelligence Test Score Interpretation