Why did David Wechsler design the Wechsler Intelligence Scale? He didn't feel that the other tests adequately measured intelligence levels in adults. He felt that knowing someone's mental age was important. He needed a formula for comparing mental age to chronological age. He wanted to know how someone was going to do in school.

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Owen Barnes

Social Studies

23 November, 04:04

Why did David Wechsler design the Wechsler Intelligence Scale? He didn't feel that the other tests adequately measured intelligence levels in adults. He felt that knowing someone's mental age was important. He needed a formula for comparing mental age to chronological age. He wanted to know how someone was going to do in school.

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Roderick Berger · Answer 1

He didn't feel that the other tests adequately measured intelligence levels in adults.

The test applied at those time was Binet scale, which differed greatly from The Wechsler-Bellevue Intelligence Scale, released in 1939. Wechsler opposed to the Binet scale items by saying they were not valid for adult test-takers because the items were chosen specifically for use with children. Furthermore, Wechsler said that it was not valid because: "Binet scale's emphasis on speed, with timed tasks scattered throughout the scale, tended to unduly handicap older adults." And he believes that a test should focus on the global capacity of a person to act purposefully, to think rationally, and to deal effectively with his environment. So that Wechsler believed that "mental age norms clearly did not apply to adults.