Unit XI Module 61: Assessing Intelligence

The child will do as well as the average 10-year-old.

A child has a mental age of 10. What does this mean?

Binet's mental age

A measure of intelligence test performance; the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance.

Achievement test

A test designed to assess what a person has learned. Ex: exams, quizzes, and tests that are about information you've previously learned.

Aptitude test

A test designed to predict a person's future performance; the capacity to learn. Ex: a college entrance exam.

Intelligence quotient (IQ)

Defined originally as the ratio of mental age (ma) to chronological age (ca) multiplied by 100 (_____ _____ = ma/ca x 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.

Standardization

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

Nurture

Did Binet believe that children were slow because of their genes (nature) or their environment (nurture)?

Flynn effect

Entrance aptitude tests drop, yet intelligence test performance was improving

83 (ma/ca x 100 -> 10/12 x 100) (10/12 =.0.83) (0.83 x 100 = 83).

If a child has a mental age of 10 and a chronological age of 12, what is their IQ?

No.

Is IQ still calculated like this today?

68% (95% are within 2 standard deviations).

Looking at the normal curve, what percentage of scores are within 1 standard deviation of the mean?

Validity

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

Content validity

The extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest. Ex: the road test for a driver's license has this because it samples the tasks a driver routinely faces.

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 retesting.

Wechsler Adult Intelligence scale (WAIS)

The most widely used intelligence test; contains verbal and performance (nonverbal) sub-tests.

Predictive validity (criterion-related 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. Ex: intelligence tests should have this.

Normal curve

The symmetrical, bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many physical and psychological attributes. Most scores fall near the average, and fewer and fewer scores lie near the extremes.

Terman's Stanford-Binet

The widely used American revision of the original intelligence test.

1. Standardized 2. Reliable 3. Valid

What are the 3 criteria psychological tests have to meet to be widely accepted?

1. Similarities 2. Vocabulary 3. Block design 4. Letter-number sequencing

What are the 4 different parts to the most recent WAIS (2008)?

Human traits

What kind of things did Francis Galton (1822-1911) test as a measure of intelligence?

He wanted to reveal the intelligence with which a person was born.

What was Terman's goal for the use of intelligence tests?