unit 11 – intelligence and personality assessing intelligence and test construction
TRANSCRIPT
Unit 11 – Intelligence and Personality
Assessing Intelligence and Test Construction
Alfred Binet• To minimize bias in French elementary schools, the government hired
Binet to study how to tell the differences among children related to their varying intelligences
• They found that “bright” children seemed to match intelligence with older children and “dull” children seemed to match intelligence with younger children• Intelligence concept – mental age: level of
performance typically associated with a certain chronological age• The average 9 year old has a mental age of 9
• Legacy – theorized mental aptitude is a general capacity that shows up in various ways
Lewis Terman – Stanford University
• The innate IQ – saw that Binet’s French test did not show equivalency in California school children• Intelligence Concepts• Stanford-Binet – widely used US version of
Binet’s intelligence test
• Legacy• Culture related to IQ tests in America
• Eugenics ()
William Stern
• Intelligence concept: IQ – intelligence quotient• IQ = (mental age/chronological age) X 100
• Legacy – although IQ tests are rarely used today, the term has stuck around. “IQ” tests today measure the test-taker’s performance relative to the average performance of others the same age
Modern Tests of Mental Abilities
• David Weschler created what is now the most widely used intelligence test• WAIS (Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale)• WISC (Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children)
WAIS
• Consists of 11 subtests broken into verbal and performance tests• Yields overall intelligence (like Stanford-Binet) but gives separate
scores for verbal comprehension, perceptual organization, working memory, and processing speed • Who does that sound like? Spearman or Thurstone?
WISC
• Same concept as WAIS but for kids• If we see striking differences between a child’s perceptual
organization and working memory compared to their verbal comprehension – there may be a disorder or disability present• WISC is often used to see if a child has a learning disability (like dyslexia)
Flynn Effect• Over time, intelligence test performance has been improving
Test Construction
• How do people incorrectly infer information from the following statement?• “I have an IQ 130!”
• We must have a basis for comparison in order for your score to be meaningful.• Standardization – defining meaningful scores relative to a pretested
group• Normal curve – typically, group members’ scores are distributed in a
bell-shaped pattern
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
• Test-retest – give individuals the same test at different times to check how consistent the scores are• Split-half – split the test in half and see whether odd question scores
and even question scores agree
• The higher the correlation between test-retest or split-half, the more reliable the test• Stanford-Binet, WISC and WAIS all have reliabilities of +.9 (Why would it only
be a positive correlation?)
Validity: the extent to which a test accurately predicts or measures what it promises• Content – extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of
interest (road test for driver’s ed, course exams, AP test)
• Construct – degree to which a test measures what it claims to measure (empirical research – conclusions to your thesis statement, papers)
• Predictive – predict the criterion of future performance (intelligence tests)