The Block-design Tests

This article develops an interesting point scale of intelligence on the basis of a performance test consisting of block designs built up from the colored blocks manufactured by the Embossing Company. Seventeen designs of increasing complexity were used with a time limit on each varying from 1 ½ to 4 minutes. The actual working time of the test is 30 to 40 minutes. Both time and moves are recorded, and the results are reduced to a single score by a system of points. The maximum score is 131 points. Norms (more or less theoretical?) have been worked out from 0 at five years to 131 at twenty years. The correlations between Binet scores and Block-Design scores range around .80 (a remarkably close agreement for different types of mental tests). The correlation between teachers' estimates and the Block-Design I.Q. is only one-half as high as that between teachers' estimates and the Binet I.Q. The proposed test seems to be easily administered, easily scored, and capable of use in a large variety of different ways. From Psych Bulletin 18:06:00407. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)