The current controversy in North America regarding the practice of conducting intellectual assessments has generated intense feelings concerning the issues involved, in both lay and professional circles. Some critics have suggested that the situation cannot be equitably or scientifically resolved and that a total abandonment of attempts to quantify intellectual abilities should be voluntarily practiced. The author argues this point, taking the position that test misuse is not unavoidable and that assessment results, properly interpreted, provide educators with essential information. A review of the Soviet experience, where standardized assessment procedures have been banned since 1936, lends credence to the latter supposition. The author also suggests that Western researchers might profitably examine the work of educators and psychologists in the USSR in evolving alternative methodologies to study intellectual development and measurement.
Amidst the current furor concerning the nature of human intelligence and the ability of psychologists to quantify it via standardized tests, the above adage (slightly modernized) would seem worth repeating. The controversial nature of the social, moral, political, educational, and scientific debates taking place in both lay and professional circles has resulted in extremes in position being adopted, and the methodological and ideological faults suspected or inherent in the practiced testing procedures have led some critics to advocate the prohibition of further tests in all educational and vocational settings. Block and Dworking (1977), in their recent analysis of the issues concerning testing, have further suggested that such difficulties, confusions, and potential harmful consequences are indigenous to the practice of mental ability assessments and that workers in the field should voluntarily refrain from pursuing research related to measured intelligence on an ethical basis. This stance would seem, in the opinion of this observer, somewhat extreme in addition to being a rather simplistic and idealized resolution of the present situation. Although the writer would heartily agree that the meaning of intelligence needs definition, that its characteristics require substantial empirical study before gene-