Testing and Individual Differences

What is Intelligence?

• Intelligence–Mental quality consisting of the

ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations.

• Intelligence test– A method for assessing an individual’s mental

aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores.

• Savant syndrome• A condition in which a person otherwise

limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill. – People who often score low on intelligence

tests but have an island of brilliance. – Kim Peek

» In 8 to 10 seconds, he could read and remember a page.

» Learned 9000 books!

Rain Man

Is Intelligence One General Ability or Several Specific Abilities?

• Spearman’s General intelligence (g)–Factor analysis- a statistical procedure

that identifies clusters of related items.

• Thurstone’s counter argument- did not rank people based on a single scale of general aptitude.– Factor analysis was persistent

• Comparison to athleticism g

Is Intelligence One General Ability or Several Specific Abilities?

Theories of Multiple Intelligences• Gardner’s Nine Intelligences

– Linguistic– Logical-mathematical– Musical– Visual/Spatial– Bodily-kinesthetic– Intrapersonal– Interpersonal– Naturalist– Existential

Nine

9. Existential Plato, philosopher

Is Intelligence One General Ability or Several Specific Abilities?

Theories of Multiple Intelligences

• Sternberg’s Three Intelligences–Analytical (academic problem-

solving intelligence

–Creating intelligence

–Practical intelligence

Emotional Intelligence

• Emotional intelligence-A social intelligence

• Perceive emotions

• Understand emotions

• Manage emotions

• Use emotions for adaptive or creative thinking

– Too far?

Measuring & Assessing

Intelligence

Brain Size and Complexity• Brain size studies

– Einstein- 15% larger in lower parietal lobes

• Brain complexity studies– Neural plasticity

• Ability to grow neural connections in response to environment

– Highly educated people die with 17% more synapses

– Gray matter vs. White matter• Higher intelligence scores had more gray matter in

areas for memory, attention, and languageIt Matters

• Pay close attention to the next slide…

Which side was incomplete on the last slide?

Brain Function

• Perceptual speed–Those who perceive very quickly

tend to score somewhat higher on intelligence test.

• Neurological speed– Possibly faster cognitive processing may

allow more information to be acquired allowing for higher scores on intelligence tests.

– Neurological approach in it’s infancy

The Origins of Intelligence Testing

• Sir Francis Galton’s “intellectual strengths” assessment –Reaction time

–Sensory acuity

–Muscular power

–Body proportions

• Conclusion: Unreliable

• Alfred Binet–Indentifying French school children in

need of assistance–Mental age vs Chronological age

• Example: A child with below-average mental age is a 9 year old who performs at a 7 year old level. This child would struggle with schoolwork considered normal for their age.

• Hoped his test would be used

to improve education and not

label and limit children’s

opportunities.

The Origins

• Lewis Terman: The Innate IQ–Stanford-Binet Test

• William Stern’s Intelligence quotient (IQ)

• IQ = (mental age/chronological age) X 100

• Now, IQ of 100 is considered average

• World War I testing

Modern Tests of Mental Abilities• Achievement tests

– what you have learned

• Aptitude tests– predict ability to learn

• Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)– Consists of 11 subtests, offering scores for

verbal comprehension, perceptual organizations, working memory, and processing speed.

– Identifies strengths and weaknesses– Most popular

Are You Mensa Material?• Score 1 point for each correct answer.• Add 5 points if you finished in less than 20

minutes; 3 points if finished in less than 30 minutes.

• 25 An excellent Mensa candidate• 20-24 You can almost surely pass the

Mensa supervised test• 14-19 A very good candidate for Mensa• 10-13 A fair candidate for Mensa• Below 10 Everyone has an off day!

Principles of Test

Construction

Standardized

ReliableValid

Standardization

• Defining meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group

Normal CurveGroup members’ score typically are distributed in a bell-shaped pattern that form the normal curve.

Normal Curve

Flynn effect

• Reliability– The extent to

which a test yields

consistent results• Test-retest reliability

• Validity– The extent to which a test measures or predicts

what it is suppose to– Content validity (Criterion)

• A test samples the behavior that is of interest– A driver’s test– Testing & Individual Differences Test

– Predictive validity• Predicting the future performance

Issues in Testing • This is not an accepted intelligence test but

only an informal exercise. • Get out a piece of paper and number 1-24• There are 24 items on the test. Each item is

made up of letters, words, geometric shapes, and lines. Convert each to a verbal equivalent word or phrase.

• Example: STTHEORY• You have 3 minutes to complete the test

• Review answers• Everyone raise your hand. Put it down after I

have counted one past your total number of correct responses.

• Is this test a good measure of intelligence? • How might psychologists decided whether this

test or any test is valid?

The Dynamics of Intelligence

Stability or Change?

• Ian Deary Study– June 1, 1932 – Scotland– 87, 498 intelligence tests given to 10 ½ -

11 ½ year old– 1997 tests were rediscovered– Test was readministered to 542 survivors – What would the results– reveal?

• Scores across seven decades correlated +.66. (What does this mean?) – High scoring 11 year olds were more likely to

be living independently and less likely to suffer from Alzheimer’s

Extremes of IntelligenceThe Low Extreme

• Intellectual disability

– Formerly known as Mental Retardation

– Intelligence test scores fall at 70 or below.

–Down syndrome

• Average IQ 50

–Mainstreamed- least

restrictive environment

Extremes of IntelligenceClassifications of Intellectual Disability

Level Approximate

Intelligence Scores

Adaptation to Demands of Life

Mild 50-70 May learn academic skills up to sixth-grade level. Adults may with assistance, achieve self-supporting social and vocational skills

Moderate 35-50 May progress to second-grade level academically. Adults may contribute to their own support by working under close supervision

Severe 20-35 May learn to talk and to perform simple tasks under close supervision but are generally unable to profit from vocational training

Profound Below 25 Require constant aid and supervision

Extremes of IntelligenceThe High Extreme

• Terman’s study of gifted children– Healthy, well adjusted and very successful in

academics• Studied over a period of seven decades

– Many were doctors, lawyers, professors, scientists and writers.

• Self-fulfilling prophecy• Appropriate developmental placement

– Define each student’s talents and promote both equality and excellence for all.

Question 1

Why do intelligent people fail?

Question 2

Are intelligent people happier?

Why or why not?

Genetic and Environmental Influences on Intelligence

IntelligenceNature vs. Nurture

Are our intellectual abilities mostly inherited

or are they molded by our environments?

Twin & Adoptive Studies• Identical twin studies

– Intelligence test scores of identical twins reared together- basically the same

– Reared separately- similar enough– Identical twins- similar gray matter volume– Intelligence is polygenetic- many genes

involved in order to influence

intelligence

• Adoptive Studies– Adopted children’s intelligence

scores over time become more like

those of their biological parents.

Heritability• Heritability

–Proportion of variation among individuals that we can attribute to genes

– Never pertains to an individual, only why people differ from one another.

– Examples:• Boys raised in barrels until age 12, intelligence

differences would be due to heredity = Heritability would be 100%

• A world of clones= heritability would be 0%

Heritability

Environmental Influences• Early environmental influences

–Environment can override genetics and depression cognitive development.

–Tutored human enrichment–Targeted training

• Schooling and intelligence–Project Head Start

• Individual attention & school

readiness X

Gender Similarities and DifferencesWho is better?

• Spelling

• Verbal ability

• Nonverbal ability

• Sensation

• Emotion-detecting ability

• Math Computation

• Math problem solving

• Spatial ability

The Question of Bias• Two meanings of bias

– Popular sense• Performance difference caused by cultural

experiences– Scientific sense

• Does the test predict future behavior only for some groups of test-takers?

• Test-taker’s expectations– Stereotype threat

• A self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype

The End

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can be identified by the text being underlined and a different color (usually purple).– Unit subsections hyperlinks: Immediately after the unit title slide, a page (slide

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• Please feel free to contact me at kkorek@germantown.k12.wi.us with any questions, concerns, suggestions, etc. regarding these presentations. Kent KorekGermantown High SchoolGermantown, WI 53022262-253-3400kkorek@germantown.k12.wi.us

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Definition Slides

Intelligence Test

= a method of assessing an individual's mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores.

Intelligence

= mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations.

General Intelligence (g)

= a general intelligence factor that, according to Spearman and others, underlies specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test.

Factor Analysis

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

Savant Syndrome

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

Emotional Intelligence

= the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions.

Mental Age

= a measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance. Thus, a child who does as well as the average 8-year-old is said to have a mental age of 8.

Stanford-Binet

= the widely used American revision (by Terman at Stanford University) of Binet’s original intelligence test.

Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

= defined originally as the ratio of mental age (ma) to chronological age (ca) multiplied by 100 (thus, IQ=ma/ca X 100). On contemporary intelligence tests, the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100.

Achievement Tests

= tests designed to assess what a person has learned.

Aptitude Tests

= tests designed to predict a person’s future performance; aptitude is the capacity to learn.

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)

= the WAIS is the most widely used intelligence test; contains verbal and performance (nonverbal) subtests.

Standardization

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

Normal Curve

= a 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.

Reliability

= the extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, or on retesting.

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.

Predictive 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 (also called criterion-related validity).

Intellectual Disability

= (formerly referred to as mental retardation) a condition of limited mental ability, indicated by an intelligence score of 70 or below and difficulty in adapting to the demands of life; varies from mild to profound.

Down Syndrome

= a condition of intellectual disability and associated physical disorders caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21.

Stereotype Threat

= a self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype.

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale