AP Psychology - Intelligence Tests

Francis Galton

Created the first intelligence test. Founding member of eugenics movement. Hoped to find ideal humans and encourage them to reproduce.

Eugenics movement

A movement bent on improving the human gene pool

Alfred Binet

Was commissioned by the French school system to create a method that assesses the intelligence of a wide-range intellectual ability. Created a test that asses the student’s mental age. Feared labeling and quantifying humans for their ‘intellect’.

Louis Leon Thurstone

Used factor analysis to reduce intelligence to 7 primary factors which provided a more accurate set of intelligence factors. Techniques would later be used by researchers to Spearman’s theory of general factor of intelligence.

Mental age

The average performance of people at a certain age

Lewis Terman

Combined concepts of mental age and test-making factor analysis created the Stanford-Binet intelligence quotient. Revolutionized intelligence testing and led to the discovery that intelligence tends to increase over time. Also had eugenic ambitions

Stanford-Binet intelligence quotient

A test that analyses one’s mental age, divided by chronological age, then multiplied by 100

Flynn Effect

Nations tend to increase intelligence over time

David Wechsler

Believed one’s personality and willingness to engage with people, situations, and information impacted their intelligence. Developed Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

Utilizes both verbal + nonverbal methods that focus on 4 primary categories to assess overall and individual intelligence factors. Categories: Verbal comprehension, perceptual organization, working memory, and processing speed.

Aptitude tests

Tests that predict a person’s future performance and capacity to learn

Standardized, reliable, and valid

In order for tests to be accurate or useable they must accomplish 3 separate goals

Standardized

Results must be compared to a presented group or population. Everyone must receive the same test or set of tests, one is score relative to the scores of other participants of the same test.

Percentile

Relative ranking out of 100 according to the values of a particular variable

Reliable

Scores of half a test, a new test, or retests the same test, must have the same or similar results within a given popularion

Valid

Must accurately measure what it is supposed to. If one is testing intelligence, it should accurately predict the future performance of student learners.

Predictive validity

Diminishing ability of tests to measure future learning

Processing speed

Speed at which one can interpret and act on information

Gifted cognitively-disabled

May suffer from low scores in some categories but high scores in others

Cognitively gifted

Born with high IQs and/or general intelligence