Cognitive Abilities
Multiple Intelligence
Eight semi-independent kinds of intelligence postulated by Howard Gardner.
Triarchic Theory of Intelligence
Robert Sternberg's theory that describes intelligence as having analytic, creative, and practical dimentions.
Divergent Thinking
The ability to thing along many alternative paths to generate many different solutions to a problem.
Norm
A description of the frequency at which particular scores occur, allowing scores to be compared statistically.
g
A general intelligence factor that Charles Spearman postulated as accounting for positive correlations between people's scores on all sorts of cognitive ability tests.
s
A group of special abilities that Charles Spearman saw as accompanying general intelligence (g).
Achievement Test
A measure of what a person has accomplished or learned in a particular area.
Test
A systematic procedure for observing behavior in a standard situation and describing it with the help of a numercal scale or a category system.
Aptitude Test
A test designed to measure a person's capacity to learn certain things or perform certain tasks.
IQ Test
A test designed to measure intelligence on an object, standardized scale.
Stanford Binet
A test for determining a person's intelligence quotient, or IQ.
Psychometric Approach
A way of studying intelligence that emphasizes analysis of the products of intelligence, especially scores on intelligence tests.
Information-processing approach
An approach to the study of intelligence that focuses on mental operations, such as attention and memory, that underlie intelligent behavior.
Intelligence Quotient
An index of intelligence that reflects the degree to which a person's score on an intelligence test deviates from the average score to others in the same age group.
Fluid Intelligence
The basic power of reasoning and problem solving.
Creativity
The capacity to produce new, high-quality ideas or products.
Cognitive Ability
The capacity to reason, remember, understand, solve problems, and make decisions.
Reliability
The degree to which a test can be repeated with the same results.
Validity
The degree to which test scores are interpreted correctly and used appropriately.
Metacognition
The knowledge of what strategies to apply, when to apply them, and how to use them in new situations.
Crystallized Intelligence
The specific knowledge gained as a result of applying fluid intelligence.
Intelligence
Those attributes that center around skill at information processing, problem solving, and adapting to new or changing situations.
Convergent Thinking
the ability to apply logic and knowledge to narrow down the number of possible solutions to a problem or perform some other complex cognitive task,