Presenter Dr. Vincent Alfonzo with first-year student Kecia Boncek and her new SB5 kit

A  second-year student’s impressions of the Stanford-Binet 5

By Cathy Offen

On October 31, 2003, RIT’s School Psychology Program was happy to have Dr. Vincent Alfonzo from Fordham University, an assessment consultant from Riverside Publishing, hold an all day seminar on the newest version of the Stanford-Binet intelligence test.

As a second year graduate student, I administered the Stanford Binet 4 on one occasion. We were all given the impression that the test has serious limitations and that there were better intellectual measures to administer.  Therefore, needless to say, I had higher hopes for the Stanford-Binet 5.

Dr. Alfonso gave us a thorough walk-through of the Stanford-Binet 5’s subtests. He gave us his own personal impressions of the test, both positive and negative. The test has a great deal of manipulatives, which seemed great to me, for very small children. Moreover, since there were more low-end items on this test, it seemed even more useful for testing low-functioning children and adults. I was surprised that this test also has very high-end items that provide measurement for gifted individuals as well. While the short subtests with varying activities may be most helpful for preschoolers, it makes the Stanford-Binet 5 look quite difficult to administer and score. Yet another perk of the Stanford-Binet 5 is that the test has its own computer scoring and report writing program.

            My personal impressions of the test are mixed. I think that using this test with very young children is beneficial; however, I think that there needs to be further clarity as to what each subtest measures.

            It was great that the students and faculty had the opportunity to come to this workshop on a brand new test, so that we could all learn more about it and build our own perceptions of it. I hope that RIT can bring us many more of these useful workshops.

A first-year student's impressions of the Stanford-Binet 5           

By Katie Warsinske

            As a first year School Psychology student attending the Stanford-Binet 5 workshop, I found it very interesting.  At the time of the workshop, I had only learned how to administer achievement tests, so this was a new experience for me.  Seeing the Stanford-Binet 5 was much different, mainly because of the different manipulatives that are utilized throughout the test.  There were blocks, animals, tiles with pictures on them, and more!  Being able to go over every section of the test was especially helpful because I got an idea of how it would be administered.  We also talked about the reliability and validity of the test.  It is much easier to understand and get a grasp of these when they are being talked about in a context, rather than just looking at the manual.  As participants of the workshop we could ask questions about what we didn’t understand.  It was particularly helpful to have someone who was knowledgeable about the test give us the answers to any questions we had.  There was also a discussion about potential limitations of the test.  It is important to be aware of these in order to properly administer the test and interpret the scores.  My favorite part of the workshop was being able try out the test on each other.  Not having seen it before made it possible for us to actually see how much we knew!  Overall, I really enjoyed the workshop and learned a lot about the Stanford-Binet 5.  I would recommend that if anyone gets a chance to go to a free workshop like this, they should definitely do it!