This chapter reviews the development of ability tests in Norway and psychometric-oriented Norwegian research in intelligence and language. The cultural contexts of this outline take three forms: discussion of validity assumptions underlying test development; relating ability measurement to sociocultural changes in Norway; and the attempt to interpret differences in ability performances across nations. As will become clear, the Norwegian experience of development in tests and measurements has been much influenced by human ability research in the United States. This mirrors the cultural stream of technological influence generally and the direction of research more specifically.

Test development

Norwegian involvement in ability testing may be traced back to the first decades of this century. In many cases test instruments have been used in their original versions, especially apparatus or performance tests, while tests based on language acquisition were used after translation. Thus, the evaluation of scores was based on a “cautious” pragmatic use of foreign norms, and mostly United States norms at that. However, there are also several cases of more elaborate adaptations of ability tests. We turn now to some illustrations of cultural response to tests as forms of technological importation.

In 1913, Looft (1913) used the Binet test in investigations of school children. Some years later Dahlstrom (cf. Sandven, 1943) translated these tests into Norwegian. However, the first Norwegian adaptation of the Stanford-Binet revision of 1916 was carried out by Lofthus (1931). The adaptation process of the Stanford revision of 1937 was initiated by Eng and carried through by Sandven and collaborators (Sandven, 1954).