A Modern Arsenal for Mental Assessment

The all purpose intelligence test ought to be a thing of the past. Psychology does not need another battery of tests; rather, it needs an armory of tests, each suited for a different purpose. The armory should contain tests based on three different views of intelligence: (a) intelligence as a general reasoning ability, (b) intelligence as a collection of domain-specific skills (with emphasis on verbal and visual-spatial domains), and (c) intelligence as an information-processing concept. Measurement procedures derived from each of these views are discussed. Comments are made about the kinds of research required to further the concept of an armory of tests, rather than a battery of tests.