intelligence test
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What is an intelligence test?
An intelligence test is a series of tasks designed to measure a person's capacity to make abstractions, learn, and deal with new situations. These tests often evaluate skills like math, memory, and vocabulary and give an intelligence quotient, or IQ, score.
The IQ was originally the ratio of mental age to chronological age multiplied by 100. Today, IQ is based on statistical distributions.
The Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale and the Wechsler scales are two of the most common intelligence tests.
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Why do psychologists use intelligence tests?
Psychologists use intelligence tests to measure the capacity to make abstractions, learn, and deal with novel situations. These tests, like the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale and the Wechsler scales, consist of a series of tasks that evaluate arithmetical, memory, and vocabulary skills.
Fair assessments of performance require an understanding of the processes underlying intelligence; otherwise, there is a risk of arriving at conclusions that are misleading, if not simply wrong, when evaluating overall test scores or other assessments of performance. Intelligence tests are designed to identify intellectual disability, with a tested intelligence quotient (IQ) of 70 being the usual upper borderline for those needing special care and training.
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How is an intelligence test usually given?
Intelligence tests, like the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, are designed to evaluate a person's capacity to learn, make abstractions, and deal with new situations. These tests can be administered to individuals or groups, with the individually administered test being given orally to one person at a time, while written tests can be given to many subjects simultaneously. Individually administered intelligence tests optimize motivation and rapport. The tests consist of a series of age-graded problems that assess skills in vocabulary, memory, and arithmetic.
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What kinds of questions or tasks are on an intelligence test?
Intelligence tests involve tasks designed to measure a person's capacity to make abstractions, learn, and deal with novel situations. The skills assessed include memory, vocabulary, and arithmetical ability.
Some tests yield an intelligence quotient (IQ) through verbal subtests such as vocabulary, and performance subtests, like picture arrangement, where test takers arrange pictures to tell a comprehensible story.
Other tests measure abilities such as planning, attention, and simultaneous and successive processing. Simultaneous processing abilities are used to solve problems, while successive processing abilities are used in tests such as digit span, in which one repeats a string of memorized digits.
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How do intelligence tests measure different types of abilities?
Intelligence tests measure various abilities through diverse tasks. The Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale assesses skills like arithmetic, memory, and vocabulary, while the Wechsler scales include verbal subtests such as vocabulary and performance subtests like picture arrangement.
Some tests, like the Cognitive Assessment System, measure planning, attention, and simultaneous and successive processing abilities. Simultaneous processing involves tasks like figural matrix problems, while successive processing is used in tests such as digit span.
These tests provide an overall Intelligence Quotient (IQ) score and sometimes separate scores for verbal and performance skills.
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What are some common criticisms or limitations of intelligence tests?
Intelligence tests face criticisms regarding cultural bias, the definition of intelligence, and socioeconomic disparities. Critics argue that these tests favor affluent backgrounds, discriminating against less privileged groups. The tests may reflect cultural experiences and knowledge gained through education, rather than innate abilities.
Some suggest that test questions assume background knowledge more common among white, middle-class students. Additionally, access to test preparation and multiple test attempts advantages wealthier students. The format of standardized tests may also affect performance, with some research indicating that girls perform better on open-ended questions, while boys tend to do better on multiple choice.
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intelligence test, series of tasks designed to measure the capacity to make abstractions, to learn, and to deal with novel situations.
The most widely used intelligence tests include the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale and the Wechsler scales. The Stanford-Binet is the American adaptation of the original French Binet-Simon intelligence test; it was first introduced in 1916 by Lewis Terman, a psychologist at Stanford University. The individually administered testārevised in 1937, 1960, 1973, 1986, and 2003āevaluates persons two years of age and older and is designed for use primarily with children. It consists of an age-graded series of problems whose solution involves arithmetical, memory, and vocabulary skills.
The test is scored in terms of intelligence quotient, or IQ, a concept first suggested by German psychologist William Stern and adopted by Lewis Terman in the Stanford-Binet Scale. The IQ was originally computed as the ratio of a personās mental age to his chronological (physical) age, multiplied by 100. Thus, if a child of 10 had a mental age of 12 (that is, performed on the test at the level of an average 12-year-old), then the child was assigned an IQ of 12/10 Ć 100, or 120. A score of 100, for which the mental age equaled the chronological age, was average; scores above 100 were above average, scores below 100 were below average. The concept of mental age has fallen into disrepute, however, and few tests now involve the computation of mental ages. Yet many tests still yield an IQ; this figure is now computed on the basis of the statistical percentage of people who are expected to have a certain IQ. Intelligence test scores follow an approximately ānormalā distribution, with most people scoring near the middle of the distribution curve and scores dropping off fairly rapidly in frequency away from the curveās centre. For example, on the IQ scale about 2 out of 3 scores fall between 85 and 115 and about 19 out of 20 scores fall between 70 and 130. A score of about 130 or above is considered gifted, while a score below about 70 is considered mentally deficient or intellectually disabled.
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Intelligence tests have provoked a great deal of controversy about what kinds of mental abilities constitute intelligence and whether the IQ adequately represents these abilities, with debate centring on cultural bias in test construction and standardization procedures. Critics have charged that intelligence tests favour groups from more affluent backgrounds and discriminate against less privileged racial, ethnic, or social groups. Consequently, psychologists have attempted to develop culture-free tests that would more accurately reflect an individualās native ability. One such test, the Johns Hopkins Perceptual Test, developed by Leon Rosenberg in the early 1960s to measure the intelligence of preschool children, has a child try to match random forms (ordinary geometric forms, such as circles, squares, and triangles, are avoided because some children may be more familiar with the forms than are others). Another attempted solution to the problem was to use test material pertinent to a childās living environment; for example, for inner-city children, urban and not pastoral scenes are appropriate.