Intelligence Testing

Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test 30 tests of increasing difficulty Given to children to measure relative intelligence Compares Chronological (actual age) and Mental Age

The Stanford-Binet has been changed 4 times To update the terms and word usage To replace questions biased toward gender or location in the country 1972 To restandarize scores to include non-whites 1985 To make it less gender and culturally biased and identify specific learning disabilities

What does it do? Goal: devise impartial test to assess children’s intellectual progress in school Strategy: Systematically develop sets of questions and problems to assess what children of different ages should know and be able to do

What does it Mean? Chronological age (CA): actual age Mental age (MA): assumed to reflect an orderly process of intellectual growth common in all children If MA=CA Average intelligence If MA>CA Above average/Gifted If MA<CA Below average/Retarded

The birth of IQ: 1916 Lewis Terman of Stanford University adapts Binet’s test and coins the term Intelligence Quotient (IQ) Establishes a numerical score of 100 as average To get your IQ, MA CA X 100

Group Tests, Examples & Problems Definition: -One examiner administers it to many people Examples: SAT, ACT, GRE Goals: Helps with time and expense of individual tests and examiner bias Problems: -Test Anxiety -Intimidation -Generalization

Problems with IQ Tests (continued) Content: measures narrow set of skills ex. Verbal understanding, common sense scholastic aptitude Measures ability to take tests Discriminates against minorities (not culture-fair tests) Use of scores as labels

What do you think? If anyone knows what it is like to participate in a group test…it is you! What were some of the comments you formed or experiences you had regarding the SATs? PSSAs?

What makes a good test?

Reliability Ability of a test to produce consistent and stable results. If I gave you a test on Memory today and you score a 80% and I gave you a similar test (measuring same skills) tomorrow, would you get about 80%?

How do you know if a test is reliable? Give the test. Then, after a short period of time, give the test again to the same people. If the scores are within points, it’s reliable.

Are there serious problems determining test reliability? If you give the same test twice, people might simply remember the answers. To fix this: design two different tests, testing the same skills/abilities and use them interchangeably.

Validity Ability of a test to measure what it has been designed to measure. There are two types…

Two types of validity… Content Validity: whether the test contains an adequate sample of the skills/knowledge that it is supposed to be measuring. Criterion Validity: Refers to the relationship between test scores and independent measures of whatever the test is designed to measure. Example: students who do well academically should also do well on SAT.