INTELLIGENCE 3, 187-214 (1979)

EDITORIAL

Cognitive Correlates and Components

in the Analysis
of Individual Differences*

JAMES W. PELLEGRINO AND ROBERT GLASER

University of Pittsburgh

I. INTRODUCTION

There is a growing discontinuity between past and current thinking about

the way in which individual differences should be viewed and assessed for the
purposes of education. This conceptual break is mandated by social and
scientific advances that now make it necessary and possible to understand the
concepts of intelligence and aptitude in ways different from the past. The
tradition of mental testing has been uniquely oriented toward the selection of
individuals for instructional programs based upon the prediction of
intellectual achievement. In contrast, present viewpoints emphasize that the
significant use of measures of intelligence and aptitude is not primarily for the
purposes of prediction, but for indicating how intellectual performance can
be improved. This desired goal might be achieved if individual differences
could be interpreted in terms of processes that enhance or retard cognitive
performance. Conditions of education might then be implemented that adapt
to these individual characteristics or directly or indirectly teach prerequisite
cognitive performances that facilitate learning and development. Such
practical benefits are the distant goals of the theory and laboratory
investigations described in this paper. At the moment, it is possible to offer
only a progress report. The work that we describe has been carried out during
the last eight years in the attempt to characterize individual differences in
terms of the hypothetical structures and processes emanating from the

*Preparation of this paper was supported by funds provided by the Learning Research and
"Development Center, University of Pittsburgh, which is supported in part by the National
Institute of Education, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. The authors would
like to express their appreciation to Jeffrey Bisanz for his helpful comments on an earlier version
of this manuscript that was presented at the American Educational Research Association
meetings, 1977.
Requests for reprints may be addressed to either author, Learning Research and Development
Center, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh PA 15260.

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