Individual Differences in Mental Development

Individual Differences in Mental Development

Stability of IQ

• Around age 6, Intelligence Quotient (IQ) tends to become more stable.
• High IQ scores often correlate with higher levels of education.
• Individuals with high IQs may enter more cognitively complex and higher-paid occupations.
• IQ is frequently considered in educational decisions.
• A question arises: Do intelligence tests accurately assess educational and life potential?

Defining and Measuring Intelligence

• IQ scores represent general intelligence.
• A central question is whether human intelligence is a single characteristic or a collection of abilities.
• Factor analysis is used to identify the various abilities that intelligence tests measure.
• Distinct clusters or skill groups are referred to as factors.
• Test makers utilize these clusters to measure intelligence more accurately.
• There are group-administered versus individually administered tests.
• Examples of intelligence scales include:
  • Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales
  • Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-V)
  • Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-Revised (WPPSI-III)

Other Efforts to Define Intelligence

• Information Processing Perspective: This perspective considers processing speed as a factor in cognitive tests.
• Efficient nervous systems may lead to faster processing.
• Executive function is predictive of intellectual skills.

Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory

• Sternberg suggests that intelligent behavior involves balancing three intelligences to achieve success based on personal goals.
  • Analytical Intelligence: Involves elements of information processing.
  • Creative Intelligence: Involves creating useful solutions to problems.
  • Practical Intelligence: Involves adapting to, shaping, or selecting environments, and balancing desires with everyday demands.

Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences

• Gardner's theory includes multiple intelligences:
  • Linguistic
  • Musical
  • Logical-Mathematical
  • Visual-Spatial
  • Bodily-Kinesthetic
  • Interpersonal
  • Intrapersonal
  • Naturalistic
  • Existential
• Intelligence involves:
  • Resolving genuine problems or difficulties.
  • Finding or creating problems, evoking new solutions.
  • Recognition by others as genuinely useful and important.
  • Inter-relatedness to other intelligences.
  • Consistency with context, community, culture, and experience.

Explaining Individual and Group Differences in IQ

• Nature and Nurture:
  • The question is whether the heritability of IQ is overestimated, based on the interplay of genes and experiences.
• Cultural Influences:
  • Are IQ tests biased due to language, life experiences, or learning experiences?
  • Language and Communication Styles
    • As countries become more culturally and ethnically diverse, communication styles, vocabulary development, and family experiences vary.
    • Collaborative style of communication vs. Hierarchical style of communication.
• Knowledge:
  • IQ scores are greatly impacted by life experiences, thus varying much like Gardner’s multiple intelligences.
  • A question arises: How can one test, that yields one score, accurately characterize multifaceted intelligence?
• Stereotypes:
  • Stereotype threat: The fear of being judged on the basis of a negative stereotype. This can trigger emotions undermining performance among children and adult test takers.

Reducing Cultural Bias in Testing

• IQ scores can underestimate children’s capabilities, leading to inaccurate identification for special educational services.
• Dynamic assessment: A progressive approach incorporating purposeful teaching into the testing situation.
  • Consistent with Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development.
  • A teacher guides the student during testing for a more accurate measure of capabilities.
  • This may evoke reasoning skills transferable to different learning situations.
• Cultural bias can be reduced by countering stereotype threat.
  • Mindfulness training, self-affirmation, and aligning teaching-learning experiences to test situations can reduce implicit biases that diminish test performance.
• Standardized tests are not leaving Pennsylvania public education in the foreseeable future.
• Teachers in elementary and middle schools must align learning experiences and content with tests.

Pennsylvania Learning Standards

• Pennsylvania Learning Standards cover grades PreKindergarten to Grade 12.
• Include:
  • Arts and Humanities
  • Business, Computer, and Information Technology
  • Career Education and Work
  • Computer Science
  • Driver's Education
  • Early Learning Standards
  • English Language Arts
  • Environment and Ecology (Agriculture)
  • Family and Consumer Sciences
  • Health, Safety, and Physical Education
  • Mathematics
  • Reading and Writing in Science and Technical Subjects
  • Reading and Writing in History and Social Studies
  • Science and Technology and Engineering Education
  • Social Studies
  • World Languages
• Search the PA Learning Standards at: https://www.pdesas.org/standard/ search/