Piaget meeting with Cyril Burt’s intelligence test: a narrative review

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to present a narrative that shows the influence of Cyril Burt’s intelligence test in the creation of the clinical method used Jean Piaget, helping in the composition of knowledge on this subject. Piaget studied in Neuchâtel, Zurich and Paris before joining the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute in Geneva, where he launched his first books that took him to a prominent place in the field of psychology. The present work makes a comparison between the data available in the literature to recompose this trajectory until the turning point in Piaget’s experimental work, which happened in Paris, where he studied the Cyril Burt’s intelligence test. Knowing the elements of the creation of the Clinical Method is important to understand the ontological and epistemological foundations of the data generated by this method and its theoretical consequences. From contact with Cyril Burt’s test, Piaget suffered three determinant impacts on his life and work. The first is linked to the translation of the test, which highlighted questions about the notions of part-whole in the children’s language. The second is the possibility for Piaget to observe dozens of samples of the children’s reasoning explained by themselves, which allowed the introduction of zoology observation techniques in his psychology. Finally, the possibilities of modifying and adapting the test, which is his first original experience in experimental psychology, a technique that he would carry his entire life in the constitution of his Clinical Method.