Factor analysis of reasoning tests.

Open Access

Abstract

This project was undertaken in an attempt to clarify the underlying nature of the abilities affecting performance in types of tests that have been identified previously or suggested as measures of reasoning. The project staff devoted a considerable amount of time during the early months of the study to readings and discussions on reasoning, including both the psychological and the philosophical literature. We were impressed with the great variety of definitions, points of view, and criteria adopted or entertained by the various authors. Reasoning, like many other psychological phenomena, may be approached at different levels and with different degrees of analytic or descriptive completeness, depending upon the purpose and the theoretical orientation of the writer. We did not attempt to frame a definition of reasoning, but we did gather descriptions of reasoning behavior from various sources and descriptions of situations in which behavior considered to be reasoning is said to occur. We then attempted to select or construct one or more tests each of which required one or more of the kind of behavior that had been encountered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved)

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