Ms. Rekha Oraon, a school counsellor in a tribal district of Jharkhand, has to assess the mental ability of about 200 Class VI children before the new session begins. Many of the children speak Kurukh at home and have not yet learnt to read or write Hindi well. For them she plans a task in which each child gets a set of coloured wooden blocks. The child must arrange the blocks within a fixed time to copy a design shown on a card. Before she makes her final plan, she reads about the different kinds of intelligence tests in use.
The block task Ms. Rekha plans belongs to which type of intelligence test, and what is the major advantage of that type?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → Performance test; it can be easily administered to persons from different cultures.
Option (1) Non-verbal test; it can be easily administered to persons from different cultures. — Incorrect. Non-verbal tests use pictures or illustrations as items, as in Raven's Progressive Matrices. The block task makes the child handle real objects, so it is not a non-verbal test.
Option (2) Performance test; it can be administered to several persons simultaneously. — Incorrect. The type is right, but the advantage is wrong. Giving a test to several persons at once describes group tests. The major advantage of performance tests is their easy use across cultures.
Option (3) Non-verbal test; it can be administered to several persons simultaneously. — Incorrect. The task uses objects, not pictures, so it is not non-verbal. Testing several persons at the same time is the mark of a group test, a split by administration procedure.
Option (4) Performance test; it can be easily administered to persons from different cultures. — Correct. A performance test makes the subject manipulate objects to do a task, and no written language is needed. Copying a design with wooden blocks is the Kohs' Block Design Test kind of task. Its major advantage is that it suits persons from different cultures, such as these Kurukh-speaking children.
NCERT (2026-27): “Verbal, Non-Verbal, or Performance Tests … “Performance tests require subjects to manipulate objects and other materials to perform a task. Written language is not necessary for answering the items. For example, Kohs’ Block Design Test contains a number of wooden blocks. The subject” “Box 1.1 is asked to arrange the blocks within a time period to produce a given design. A major advantage of performance tests is that they can be easily administered to persons from different cultures.” |