Tuesday, October 26, 2010

CHC theory tipping point passed: Inroads in mainstream intelligence research

In 2005 I unilaterally claimed that the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) theory of cognitive abilities had reached the "tipping point" in school psychology--it had become the consensus psychometric framework from which new intelligence tests are developed, old ones are revised, and non-CHC batteries are analyzed. Later in 2007 I again revisited my "tipping point" claim by analyzing the use of keywords in the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) general service listserv. At that time I concluded that the actual tipping point occurred (in school psychology) sometime between 2001 and 2003.

Today I decided to see if the school psychology CHC tipping point had spilled over and gained traction in more mainstream psychology. In particular, I was interested in how often the terms "CHC" or "Cattell-Horn-Carroll" were present in articles in THE premiere journal outlet for the heavy hitters in the field of intelligence research--the journal Intelligence.

So...I went to the journal's web page and used the above two terms/phrases and asked for a search of "all fields" for the journal. Below is what I found.

Prior to 2004 there was NOT ONE article in Intelligence that mentioned CHC or Cattell-Horn-Carroll theory. However, since 2004 there have been at least 21 publications that reference this model of intelligence.

It is my opinion that CHC theory clearly reached a tipping point somewhere between 2001-2003 and it is now making strong inroads as one of the most supported models of the structure of human intelligence in the field of intelligence research.

Don't you just love good data?


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