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Intelligence
Intelligence and the childMythsGeneticsStudy of intelligenceNature of giftednessCreativityFAQIdentificationPsychology testsIQ scoreIdentifying talentscharacteristicsExceptional qualitiesObservationsLists and limitationNurture
Protegy and childhoodSecret of successGenius factoryObjectionsAssembly lineGrowthCultivating talentsProblemsPlay and explorationSelf conceptFamily relationshipKindergartenUnderachieversPre-schoolPrenatal developmentInfanthoodStimulation| Psychology Tests |
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| In a sense, giftedness is only a working concept of statistical classification on rarity of ability. Testing is a central issue in psychology and it will continue to be controversial. Psychological tests are useful, so long as their limitations are known and accounted for. Attaching numbers to people is not hard; attaching meaningful numbers is very problematic. In the U.S. the Guidelines for Testing (1978) warned that test results 'should be interpreted as an estimate of performance under a given set of circumstances. They should not be interpreted as some absolute characteristic'. Taken out of this set of circumstances, the correlation of the test scores to reality performance are often very poor. IQ tests which mostly tap academic intelligence, correlate about 0.5 with school performance but only about 0.2 with job performance, which taps a wider range of abilities. Research into some handicapped people (whose IQ test scores may be as low as 80) who spent long hours betting at a racetrack showed that their mental feats were quite impressive. In a few cases they were so adept that they could live off their winnings. Tests only measure how well one has attempted it at that particular time. If you were assessed in the morning to be a hungry, confused, disturbed, dim witted, slovenly, poorly motivated and ill informed individual, this assessment might still hold true in the evening, but not after your having just spent 10 minutes scanning the morning papers at the breakfast table. Conventional tests do not identify different testing strategies resulting from different cognitive styles. An acceptable test would try to accommodate all kinds of fluctuations in its reliability. But still, those who are quick, careful, skillful, experienced or simply intelligent might all score similarly although the cause of this performance might be different. The test performance of a person also varies depending on a number of factors such as alertness, stress, mood and chance factors. The American Psychological Association estimates that there are perhaps 8,000 tests in active service, ranging from Quick Tests (which tests how clever one is as fast as possible) to test on addiction to zoology. There are surprising few general books on testing, with even less general critical guides to issues that surround testing, often issues at the heart of psychology. Contrary to common assumptions, psychology tests are not solidly 'valid' or 'reliable' in the normal sense of these words. Tests may be biased in various ways. They may be inappropriately designed, selected, implemented; culturally or socio-economically biased etc.. Their internal consistency, test/re-test coefficient or validity coefficient (correlation between scores on a test with respect to performance in real life tasks or education) may be low, and their results are subjected to interpretation by the testers. Even if a test is reliable and valid, human performance is inconsistent, and the derived result will only have very limited meaning. Focusing just on the one behavior, attitude or aptitude in question is deliberately ignoring other aspects of the personality that may be material. Tests may be chosen, consciously or not, by psychologists to suit their theoretical position. Different tests may yield opposing results. For example, utilizing different tests one research group found children's IQ over four years was rather unstable while another found it to be stable. Tests may be inherently culturally biased or difficult to validate when utilized in a different ethnic population. Intelligence testing can also reinforce political and social prejudice. For example, it has been shown that the IQ of the Japanese is significantly higher than that of the Americans by 10 points (the median score being 100 points). Some pointed to this being one of the major factors leading to the Japanese's rising dominance in the global economy since its defeat in World War II. But others suggested that there were basic flaws in the argument that led to this conclusion. The essential points being that not only does Japan's education system produce children who are more proficient in doing tests, but that Japanese students used were mainly those from metropolitan areas (most Japanese live in cities) while the U.S. test scores used included also those children from rural areas (proportionately more of the US population reside outside of the metropolitan area) and it is generally accepted that children residing in city areas have higher IQ scores than those residing in country areas. Although there is no reason why the average intelligence level of all races should be the same, it is generally assumed that this difference is less significant than individual variations within a race. CONTRARY to what is widely believed, there is no firm evidence indicating that general intelligence exists as a quality that is either unitary or capable of exerting any kind of causative or controlling influence on specific abilities. Different abilities of any individual are not only unconstrained by that person's measured general intelligence, but are also to a marked extent autonomous and independent of one another. On the other hand, evidence firmly points to the conclusion that the majority of skills needed in order to do well at jobs in the real world are only weakly related to those abilities that are assessed in intelligence tests. Correlation between tested intelligence and job effectiveness are rather modest, typically between 0.2 and 0.4. Even with a high correlation between scores on a test with respect to the performance in real life jobs or education being of, say, 0.7, it only means that the factor measured only accounts for 0.72, i.e., 0.49 or less than half, of the variance. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) For those who implicitly trusts "scientifically" designed psychology tests like the MBTI (which is probably the most widely used personality inventory in history), PLEASE do yourselve a favor and read the article at http://skepdic.com/myersb.html . |
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