De opvoedbaarheid van de intelligentie. Een oud strijdpunt tussen pedagogen en psychologen

Abstract

This article describes and analyses the influence of the German proto-cognitive psychologist Otto Selz on Dutch educational studies between about 1930 and 1970. After an initial phase of considering IQ-testing to select pupils for higher secondary education, Dutch educational scientists began to develop devices, such as the 'silent reading test', to not only test but also stimulate the intelligence of primary pupils. On the basis of Selz' basic assumptions as to the processes of thinking and learning new didactical principles were developed, that continued to be applied into the 1970s. Apart from personal factors - such as Selz' escape from Nazi-Germany to the Netherlands - the popularity of his theory seems to have been an effect not only of the tradition to look eastward for inspiration, but also of educational scientists seizing the opportunity to develop an identity of their own in a field that had no yet been claimed by psychologists.