Unit 5 AP Psychology: Intelligence & Testing

Aptitude test

a test designed to predict a person's future performance; aptitude is the capacity to learn

Achievement test

a test designed to assess what a person has learned; Example: Psychology Final Exam

Factor analysis

a statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie a person's total score.

Validity

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

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

IQ formula

mental age/chronological age x 100; Does not work in adults as group intelligence differences become less with age.

Analytic Intelligence (Sternberg)

Book Smarts; valuable in high school and college, as students are expected to remember and analyze various ideas like solving complex math problems

Creative Intelligence (Sternberg)

reacting adaptively to novel situations and generating novel ideas

Practical Intelligence (Sternberg)

Street Smarts; the ability to solve everyday problems through skilled reasoning (like navigating streets, or ability to find out information quickly)

Stanford-Binet

the widely used American revision of Binet's original intelligence test. (Created by Lewis Terman at Stanford U)

WAIS/WISC

Forms of intelligence tests that include both PERFORMANCE AND VERBAL subscales; Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children

Eugenics

the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics like intelligence

Self-fulfilling prophecies

beliefs about how a person will behave that actually make the expected behavior more likely to occur; debated in tracking students through gifted programs

Heritability

Studied using twin and adoption studies to show how much genetics plays a role in specific characteristics like intelligence.

Savant syndrome

a condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing

Stereotype threat

the apprehension experienced by members of a group that their behavior might confirm a cultural stereotype causing low performance on tests

Standardization

defining meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group

Flynn effect

the worldwide phenomenon that shows intelligence test performance has been increasing over the years

Terman's longitudinal study

Showed those with advanced intelligences were more likely to be academically successful; criticized for having mostly white, rich males as the sample

g factor

otherwise known as general intelligence

Howard Gardner

Devised theory of multiple intelligences based on his research of savants (i.e.- musical, bodily-kinesthetic, visual-spatial, linguistic, interpersonal...)

Bell Curve

Also known as the normal curve or normal distribution of scores in which the bulk of the scores fall toward the middle, with progressively fewer scores toward the "tails" or extremes

100

The average score on an intelligence measure; considered the mean, median and mode of the normal curve for intelligence

68%

The percent of people who score within +/- one standard deviation of the mean on the normal curve

130

A person who scores two standard deviations above the mean on intelligence test is in the 98th percentile

70

A person who scores two standard deviations below the mean on a standardized intelligence measure is in the 2nd percentile and may be considered intellectually disabled if they meet other criteria such as lack of life skills.

stereotype lift

awareness of positive expectations can actually improve performance on tasks. Also when an outgroup if seen as worse, the ingroups scores improve.

growth mindset

Fostered with belief that intelligence is changeable

Increased when effort rather than ability encouraged

Made teens more resilient when frustrated by others

fixed mindset

the idea that we have a set amount of an ability that cannot change

Split-Half Reliability

A measure of consistency in which a test is split into two parts, usually evens and odds and an individual's scores on both parts are compared.

Test-retest Reliability

a method for determining the consistency of a test by comparing a test taker's scores on the same test taken on separate occasions

Construct Validity

The extent to which there is evidence that a test measures, usually compared to other established tests.

predictive validity

the extent to which a score on a scale or test predicts scores on some future measure

Negative skew

A curve or distribution of scores that has extreme scores below the mean and the vast majority of scores are above the mean.

Positive skew

A curve or distribution of scores that has extreme scores above the mean and the vast majority of scores are below the mean.

Fluid Intelligence

Ability to reason quickly and think in new situations independent of any prior knowledge, decreases with age

Crystallized Intelligence

Our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age

Terman’s Longitudinal Study

Followed gifted kids for decades and found that high IQ usually leads to success, but personality and environment also matter.