Mod 38 Terms

Intelligence test

a method for assessing an individual’s mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others (using numerical scores)

Achievement tests

tests designed to assess/reflect what a person has learned

Aptitude tests

tests designed to predict a person’s future performance (or ability to learn a new skill)

Aptitude

the capacity to learn

Francis Galton

• measured human traits and natural ability (measures did not correlate)

• eugenics

Alfred Binet

• measure mental age for intelligence of French school children with an intelligence test

• MA/CA*100=IQ

Mental Age

measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the level of performance typically associated with children of a certain chronological age

Lewis Terman

• revised Binets test (extended the upper end of the test’s range) and Americanized it

• for him the tests revealed the intelligence that a person was born with

• promoted accounting childrens inequalities in original endowment by assessing their “vocational fitness”

Standford-Binet

the widely used American version of Binet’s original intelligence test

William Stern

created term (IQ) intelligence quotient

(IQ) Intelligence quotient

defined originally as the ratio of mental age to chronological age multiplied by 100 (on contemporary tests, the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100) (original didnt work out for adults)

Eugenics

movement that proposed measuring human traits and using the results to restrict reproduction among those not smart and fit

David Wechsler

created WAIS, took words out of tests and added symbols

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

the WAIS and close versions for children are the most widely used IQ tests

• contain verbal and performance (nonverbal) subtests

• shows overall IQ score and individual scores for verbal comprehension, perceptual organization, working memory, and processing speed (give clues to cognitive strengths or weaknesses)

• some subtest include: similarities, vocabulary, block design, and letter-number sequencing

Standardization

defining uniform testing procedures and meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group

Normal curve

symmetrical, bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many types of data

• most scores fall near the mean

• highest point=average score

Flynn effect

intelligence test scores improving through generations

• Flynn attributes this to our need to develop new mental skills to cope with modern environments

Reliability

the extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, on alternative forms of the test, or on retesting

• higher the correlation of 2 scores, the higher the reliability

• doesn’t ensure validity

Validity

the extent to which a test or experiment measures or predicts what it is supposed to

Content validity

the extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest

Predictive validity

the success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict

• assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and the criterion behavior

when we validate a measure using a wide range of scores but then use it with a restricted range of scores, it loses

much of its predictive validity

general aptitude tests are less __ and more _

predictive, reliable