Myers' Psychology for AP®, 2e, Module 61

achievement test

a test designed to assess what a person has learned. (p. 619)

aptitude test

a test designed to predict a person's future performance; aptitude is the capacity to learn. (p. 619)

content validity

the extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest. (p. 622)

intelligence quotient (IQ)

defined originally as the ratio of mental age (ma) to chronological age (ca) multiplied by 100 (thus, IQ = ma/ca × 100). On contemporary intelligence tests, the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100, with scores assigned to relative performance above or below average. (p. 618)

mental age

a measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance. Thus, a child who does as well as the average 8-year-old is said to have a mental age of 8. (p. 618)

normal curve (normal distribution)

a symmetrical, bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many types of data; most scores fall near the mean (about 68 percent fall within one standard deviation of it) and fewer and fewer near the extremes. (p. 621)

predictive validity

the success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict; it is assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and the criterion behavior. (Also called criterion-related validity.) (p. 622)

reliability

the extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, on alternate forms of the test, or on retesting. (p. 622)

standardization

defining uniform testing procedures and meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group. (p. 621)

Stanford-Binet

the widely used American revision (by Terman at Stanford University) of Binet's original intelligence test. (p. 618)

validity

the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to. (See also content validity and predictive validity.) (p. 622)

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)

the WAIS is the most widely used intelligence test; contains verbal and performance (nonverbal) subtests. (p. 620)