The intelligence quotient, or IQ, test is intended to provide a standardized quantitative indication of human intelligence. Concretely, the result of a psychometric test is correlated with the other elements of a psychological examination. This notion of IQ dates back to the beginning of the XNUMXth century, at a time when the idea was to detect students with difficulties in order to provide them with support. The IQ test should be performed by a qualified psychologist to conduct this type of psychometric test. Several sessions are sometimes necessary in order to evaluate it in the best conditions. This type of test is sometimes criticized. Finally, for the geneticist Albert Jacquard, “the objective of measuring IQ should not be the pleasure of predicting failure, but the possibility of taking measures that will prevent it”.

At the very beginning of the XNUMXth century, tests to measure intelligence were first of all the creation of several theorists. At that time, scientific psychology had just been established and set out to “establish positive knowledge, that is to say explicit and validated, on the human psyche,” wrote psychology professor Michel Huteau recently. One of the psychologists and pedagogues of the time, Alfred Binet, then initiated a movement which consisted in studying intelligence by making “a larger place for introspection, and to focus the investigation on the higher phenomena of the world. ‘mind, such as memory, attention, imagination, orientation of ideas ”.

Before Alfred Binet, some psychologists of the Wundtian era (named after the famous anthropologist and psychologist Wilhem Wundt, 1832-1920) believed “that apart from the simplest processes of the mind, no experimentation on morale could take place. do it scientifically, ”writes Binet. He believed that “the experimental study of the higher forms of the mind can be done with sufficient precision and control to have scientific value”, before adding the objection which may immediately come to mind: “ how to make an experimental study on phenomena of consciousness which are elusive? ”

In 1905, the first version of the metric scale of intelligence, the Binet-Simon test, was finally published. This test inspired most of the subsequent tests. A second version of the metric scale, dating from 1908, moreover establishes the notion of mental age, a new way of classifying subjects which, he says, “is equivalent for the needs of practice to a measure”. Binet’s great ideas on intelligence are found, in fact, in his test: in fact, the items all concern higher psychological processes, and moreover these items are varied, which is not unrelated to idea that intelligence is a constellation of functions.

It is also not without interest to recall that it is the study of the interindividual variability of a function that will lead Binet to look for signs of intelligence, then will give rise to the metric scale. But in addition, the study of functions in the same individual will also lead him to determine his intellectual type, by differentiating on the one hand the rather “objectivist” subjects, and on the other those who are more “subjectivist”.

There are actually two types of intelligence quotient measurement: 

• The test says Binet-Simon;
• The test called Welcher-Bellevue. 

An IQ test should always be performed by a licensed psychologist to perform it. It can be done over several sessions. Generally, it aims either to detect a child or an adult of high potential, or conversely, to detect possible difficulties to come in the course of a child. These tests were especially created for the school environment. They are used in particular in the context of an assessment, for a student with difficulties.

These IQ tests can also be useful during career counseling. Thus, in Planetesante.ch, the professor of psychology of the University of Lausanne Jérôme Rossier estimated: “We are not going to direct a young person with an IQ much lower than the average towards a career requiring great faculties of reasoning. On the other hand, a pupil who has bad grades but good reasoning skills can do very well in his studies, provided he is in a suitable context and makes more effort to get there ”.

IQ tests can also be useful in the professional environment, in particular to estimate the capacities of an individual who has been away from the world of work for a long time. They are also used in some cases to screen for dementia in the elderly.

Be careful, you should never test the IQ by a free online test on the Internet because these are not reliable. The IQ test takes place with a psychologist specializing in this assessment, who frequently performs several sessions, and finds the most suitable time to perform the psychometric tests. And the result of these so-called psychometric tests must always be correlated with the other elements of a more complete psychological examination.

Concretely, the IQ tests consist in particular in finding intruders in series, such as series of words for example or forms, they can also consist in solving mathematical problems. In fact, these tests finely assess the ability to perform tasks, whether they are related to reasoning, verbal skills, or numerical, logical and spatial abilities. 

If the models and the exercises proposed have obviously evolved over the past 100 years, the principle remains the comparison of an individual compared to the average of individuals of the same age.

The result of the IQ test can provide a clue about the intellectual alertness of the child or the adult. Parents as educators are then free to use it or not, since the construction of these IQ tests is empirical. Indeed, there is no complete theory behind it.

The results of this IQ test would tend to classify the population into four groups:

• Between 80 and 89 IQ would be the lower intelligents;
• An IQ between 90 and 100 would group the average intelligent;
• Superior intelligents would have an IQ between 101 and 120;
• Finally, the gifted have an IQ of 121 to 130.

If the average was set at 100, then half of the population has an IQ between 90 and 110.

But ultimately, it is oh so essential to recall, following Ilan M. Edelstein, that “intelligence is not just a number. You can’t classify people’s intelligence in a linear fashion. IQ tests do not measure all intelligences or all areas of intelligence. ”