Unit 11

aptitude test

As you probably know, aptitude refers to a person's capacity to learn. It should come as no surprise then that an aptitude test is a test designed to predict learning capacity for a particular area or particular skills. For example, the SAT is a test designed to predict how well you will perform in college (I won't get into the good and/or bad of this test). It is not designed to measure how will you did in high school (that would be an achievement test) but how capable you are of learning all the new skills necessary to do well in college.

normal curve

A frequency curve where most occurrences take place in the middle of the distribution and taper off on either side. Normal curves are also called bell shaped curves. A "true" normal curve is when all measures of central tendency occur at the highest point in the curve. The normal curve is an important, strong, reoccurring phenomenon in psychology. An example of a normal distribution would be a frequency distribution of people's height. Most people would be of average height with extremes occurring on either side.

stanford-binet

Alfred Binet (in collaboration with Theodore Simon) was instructed by the French government to design a test that would identify children who would have problems with school and or learning the material that was designed for children in their own age range. a widely used intelligence test. They then set out to create a test that measures a child's mental age (the average mental ability for a child of a specific chronological age). They could use this mental age as a guide, to see if, for example, a 5 year old has "normal" intelligence, which would be a mental age of 5, or a mental age that was above or below. The test does not identify why children perform above or below a specific age range, only at what mental age a child performs. The test does however, according to its creators, measure how well a child of a specific age will be able to handle school work designed for children of similar age.

validity

All tests are designed to measure something; hopefully something specific. If the test does indeed measure what it is intended to measure, then we can say that the test is valid (or has validity). In psychology, tests are usually judged according to their validity and their reliability (if the test produces similar results each time the test is taken). Tests that are valid are also reliable. However a test might be reliable without it being valid. For example, let's say you go to class and your teacher says that he or she has learned that the weight of your head determines the likelihood of you getting cancer. So, each day at the beginning of class the teacher weighs everybody's head on a scale. This continues for one week. Across each day of the week, the weight of your head is going to remain approximately the same; thus we can conclude that the test is reliable. However, is this test valid; does it measure what it is intended to measure (that the weight of your head predicts the likelihood of you getting cancer)? The answer is....NO! So, although the test is reliable, it is not necessarily valid (it does NOT measure what it was designed to measure).

achievement tests

An achievement test is a standardized test that is designed to measure an individual's level of knowledge in a particular area. Unlike an aptitude test which measures a person's ability to learn something, an achievement test focuses specifically on how much a person knows about a specific topic or area such as math, geography, or science. One of the most well known achievement tests is the SAT, which is often used by college admission boards to determine who gets accepted to college. Unfortunately, schools often use the SAT to predict how well students will learn (or perform) in college, which means they are using an achievement test as though it was an aptitude test.

intellectual disability

An intellectual disability is defined by the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities as "significant limitations in both intellectual functioning and in adaptive behavior." These limitations affect everyday social interactions and basic life skills and must be present before the age of 18. Intelligence functioning is essentially general intelligence which is comprised of the ability to learn, retain information, solve problems, and use reasoning and logic skills. Adaptive behaviors are skills that are learned in daily life and from interactions with the environment and other people. These included basic social skills, learning, and the behaviors that occur in day to day life. Someone with an intellectual disability can have difficulty with these behaviors due to their condition.

intelligence test

An intelligence test is a measure of one's intelligence (how do you like that definition?). Seriously, it is a test designed to measure a person's mental aptitude or inherent ability. The measure is taken, a numerical score is assigned, and then compared to others who've taken the same test.

standardization

Consistency and objectivity of how tests are administered and scored. In order to compare one person to another on a test, it is important that they take the test under the same conditions and the same scoring procedure is applied to both. For example, suppose one person took a math test in a thunderstorm and the other in a silent proof room. Based on the test scores, could we really say who was better in math? Or is it fairer to say that the thunderstorm condition confounded that person's score? Let us further say that we applied different scoring criteria to each of the test takers. Could we still say who was better in math? This is way standardization is so important in testing.

content validity

Content validity is an important research methodology term that refers to how well a test measures the behavior for which it is intended. For example, let's say your teacher gives you a psychology test on the psychological principles of sleep. The purpose of this test is to measure your knowledge or mastery of the psychological priniciples of sleep, right? If the test does indeed measure this, then it is said to have content validity -- it measures what it is supposed to measure.

down syndrome

Down syndrome is a condition of mental retardation and associated physical disorders caused by an extra chromosome. Each person has 23 pairs of chromosomes, one pair from each parent. A person with down syndrome has a 3rd chromosome on the 21st pair. The results are both mental and physical, and often include small eyes, and hands, protruding tongues, short necks and fingers. There are all different levels of the disorder, and the probability of a child being born with it increases as the mother's age increases; this is especially true as the mother becomes middle aged.

emotional intelligence

Have you ever met someone, who, although normally intelligent, was very awkward or even inappropriate in social situations? This type of problem can be the result of low emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is an understanding of how words, actions, facial expressions and body language affect interactions and relationships between people.

factor analysis

Okay, we know how most students feel about statistics, so we will make this as quick and painless as possible. Factor analysis is a type of statistical procedure that is conducted to identify clusters or groups of related items (called factors) on a test. For example, when you take a multiple choice Introductory Psychology test, a factor analysis can be done to see what types of questions you did best on and worst on (maybe they did best on factual types of questions but really poorly on conceptual types of questions). That wasn't too bad was it?

savant syndrome

People with savant syndrome typically score poorly on intelligence tests, but have specific talent or skill for which they are exceptional. For example, someone who may be of limited intelligence may be a remarkable painter or musician. Another example may be someone who is barely able to speak correctly but is a mathematical genius.

predictive validity

Predictive validity is the extent to which performance on a test is related to later performance that the test was designed to predict. For example, the SAT test is taken by high school students to predict their future performance in college (namely, their college GPA). If students who scored high on the SAT tend to have high GPAs in college, then we can say that the SAT has good predictive validity. But if there is no significant relation between SAT sores and college GPA, then we would say the SAT has low or poor predictive validity, because it did not predict what it was supposed to.

reliability

Reliability refers to the extent to which a test or other instrument is consistent in its measures. For example, a weight scale can be judged reliable if measures for a 25-pound weight do not vary over time or change for subsequent weightings. Reliability is an important concept in science. If a test is not reliable, we cannot find the answers to our questions. Imagine placing a 25-pound weight on a scale and getting a different answer every time. What purpose would the scale serve? In fact, we most likely would question if indeed the scale is measuring weight or something entirely different. Unreliability would prohibit us from reporting our findings simply because they are not reliable.

stereotype threat

Stereotype Threat is when worry about conforming to a negative stereotype leads to underperformance on a test or other task by a member of the stereotyped group (i.e., men, women). For example, we sometimes hear that men are better than women in math and science. A woman who is aware of this stereotype may try to fight it by getting a really high score on a math exam, but the anxiety and distraction caused by the stereotype may actually lead her to get a lower score on the exam than she would otherwise. Thus, women's performance in math may not be due to lower ability compared to men but to negative stereotypes.

intelligence

There has often been debate about exactly what intelligence is. A few years ago, a book called the "Bell Curve" was written about intelligence and it stirred up so much controversy that one of the authors went into hiding for fear of his safety. At its core, we can define intelligence as the capacity for goal-directed, adaptive behavior. This type of behavior is that which helps us achieve the goals we set and the challenges we face. If we are stuck in a very bad situation, those with a lot of intelligence should be more likely to find a solution or a way out of the bad situation than those without a lot of intelligence. In addition, intelligence is not just inborn, but increases with experience. Thus high intelligence is both innate and socially influence

intelligence quotient

This is a mathematical formula that is supposed to be a measure of a person's intelligence. When it was first created, it was defined as the ratio of mental age (MA) to chronological age (CA) multiplied by 100 (thus IQ = MA/CA x 100). For example, if a 20 year old answers the questions like a "typical" or "average" 20 year old would, the person would have an IQ of 100 (20/20 x 100 = 100). More recently psychologists decided that it's better look at relative IQ score - how a person scores relative to other people the same age. Now people get assigned an average score of 100 and then we compare their actual scores on the series of intelligence tests to this average score in terms of a standard deviation. For example, if you score 2 standard deviations above the mean (mean being 100), then you would score a 130 since each standard deviation is 15 points (that's just the formula used).

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) is an intelligence test that is used quite commonly, and it measures the verbal and nonverbal abilities of adults. The test has been revised in recent years and is now called the WAIS-R. When using this test, the person scoring it or evaluating it would look to see if there are differences between the verbal and nonverbal sections. A big difference could mean that there is some kind of problem (such as a learning problem). There is also a similar test for children that also has two sections, but the items are designed to be age specific (at least in the sense of being designed for children as opposed to adults).

general intelligence

When you take an intelligence test you get an overall score and several specific scores. The overall score that you received, which is measured by all of the tasks on the test, is considered the representation of your general intelligence.

mental age

t's easy to tell how old you are chronologically...if you are 10 years old, then your chronological age is 10. But determing a person's mental age, or the age-level at which they function mentally or intellectually, is much harder. Binet actually developed tests to measure mental age and it measures a person's level of performance as it corresponds to their chronological age. For example, one child age 10 may be able do sophisticated math, read more effectively, and comprehend more than another child the same age. In this case we might say that one child has a mental age greater than the other and is more in line cognitively with people several years older.