Ch 9 Flashcards
Why did Binet and his colleague Simon devise a test in 1905 (the Binet-Simon test)? What was its purpose?
The binet-simon scale expressed a child’s score in terms of “mental level” or “mental age”. A childs mental age indicated that he or she displayed the mental ability typical of a child of that chronological (actual) age
Raw scores on their scale were “converted” to represent mental level or mental age. What does a mental age of X (for example, 6) mean?
A child’s mental age indicated that he or she displayed the mental ability typical of a child of that chronological (actual) age. so a 6 would mean a 6 year old I thiiink???
Terman and his colleagues at Stanford University revised the Benet-Simon test and it became known as the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale/Test (1916).
a. How was an IQ score calculated from a child’s performance on the test based on the concept of mental age? See textbook Table 9.1.
b. What does an IQ of 100 mean when it is calculated in that way?
IQ=(mental age/divided by chronological age) x 100
a n IQ of 100 I think means that their mental age matches their chronological age (since it’s mental age over chron age and the result of that is times 100)
Wechsler developed a well-known intelligence test for adults in 1939: the WAIS scale. Modern versions use a roman numeral to indicate the version (for example, WAIS-IV). How did the content of this test differ from the Stanford-Binet test? See also textbook Figure 9.4.
Weschler made his test less dependent on participants verbal abilities, he also discarded the intelligence quotient and started using normal distribution -
What was Spearman’s conclusion about the structure of intelligence from using factor analysis? a. What did Spearman call the common factor that he found?
b. What has most modern research shown about Spearman’s concept of a general factor of intelligence?
Spearman invented a procedure called factor analysis- in factor analysis correlations among many variables are analyzed to identify closely related clusters of variables
a. What did Spearman call the common factor that he found? He called it “g” for general factor
b. What has most modern research shown about Spearman’s concept of a general factor of intelligence? Comment: While g dominates our current understanding of intelligence, there have also been some attempts to develop hierarchical models where the general factor, g, is at the top, with other levels below it.
This is a complex topic, and the basis for one view, factor analysis, is a statistical technique beyond the scope of an introductory course. The basic difference between the two main views of intelligence is the question of whether intelligence involves many forms of ability, or whether it partly or even mostly consists of one singular intelligence.
The evidence from factor analysis, which assesses the correlations among the sub-tests (or scales) of an intelligence test (or many separate tests of what appear to be very different skills), suggests that there is one overall contributor to intelligence that accounts for a good portion of the performance on all of the tests. In simple terms, a person who does well on any sub-scale tends to do well on all of them, and someone who does poorly on one tends to do poorly on all of them: the sub-tests are positively correlated with one another to a moderate degree. This is a general statement about the pattern of results across the sub-tests for the population as estimated by a representative sample. It does not imply that every individual will obtain the same relative score (compared to the group mean) on all of the sub-tests. There are also other factors that influence an individual’s performance on a particular sub-test.
What are crystallized intelligence and fluid intelligence?
Comment: While our textbook notes that crystallized intelligence is associated with using “acquired knowledge,” it doesn’t clearly indicate that many of the sub-scales that correlate most with crystallized intelligence assess knowledge that one would probably learn in school, such as vocabulary, math, and world knowledge. Notice that this is similar to what academic achievement tests (see below) are designed to measure.
Fluid intelligence is more related to speed of processing, working-memory capacity, and solving novel, often abstract, problems using general strategies (that is, not known solution methods).
Fluid intelligence involves reasoning ability memory capacity and speed of information processing
Crystalized intelligence involves ability to apply acquired knowledge and skills in problem solving
Describe Carroll’s three-level model of intelligence. Where is g in the model?
g is at the top of the of the strata -it was a hierarchy that Carroll proposed- where intelligence is represented by 3 strata, as well as eight broad abilities such as crystallized and fluid intelligence (referred to as GF and GC) in the middle layer (stratum II), and abilities like spelling at the bottom (stratum III).
In general, one’s IQ score in childhood predicts one’s health later in life and one’s longevity. Discuss what the correlation between IQ and these outcomes may mean, and how they should be interpreted. What are possible causal explanations for these correlations?
I assume that somehow IQ is related to intelligence in decision making? Book says: it could be hereditary, or related to grey matter in brain… cold probably expand on this answer but whatever
Describe what standardization means with respect to the administration of a test.
standardization refers to the uniform procedures used in the administration and scoring of a test. all participants get the same instructions, the same questions and the same time limits so that their scores can be compared meaningfully.
Explain how the scores of a test are standardized. Describe how a standardization sample/group is involved. a. What are test norms?
b. Why are test norms needed and how do they denote relative standing (for example, ability, personality traits, psychological functioning)?
c. How is the raw score on a test converted to one that can be compared to the test norms?
the standardization of a tests scoring system includes the development of test norms. Test norms provide info about where a score on a psychological test ranks in relation to other scores on that test. The sample of ppl that the norms are based on is called a test’s standardization group… test norms allow you to convert your raw score on a test into a percentile. A percentile score indicates the percentage of ppl who score at or below the score one has obtained.
Describe reliability.
a. A test with high test-retest reliability would have what kind of correlation between two administrations of the test? What does this mean?
Comment: Another form of reliability is whether the test score remains the same regardless of who marks it: inter-rater reliability. This kind of reliability is only an issue for tests that must be graded, since they often involve subjective judgment.
b. Correlation coef icient:
Relibability refers to the measurement consistency of a test (or of other kinds of measurement techniques). a test’s reliability can be stimated in several ways including the approach to check test-retest reliability which is estimated by comparing subejcts scores on two adminstrations of a test…. Correlation coefficient=is a numerical index of the degree of relationship between two variables. if ppl get two similar scores on the two different adminstrations of the test, then the test-retest reliability must be positively corelated
See textbook Figure 9.1. 14. Describe the concept of validity. How can validity be thought of with respect to decision making or drawing an inference?
a. Produce some examples of tests that are not valid measures of specific constructs (for example, math ability).
b. Describe the types of validity: content, criterion, and construct.
c. How can criterion-based validity be assessed by comparing a test/scale with another trusted test of the same ability or trait using correlation? Describe the correlation value one would expect to find (strength and direction).
Validity=refers to the ability of a test to measure what it was designed to measure if we develop a new test of assertiveness, we have to provide some evidence that it really measures assertiveness. …book points out that a specific test might be valid for one purpose such as placing students in school and invalid for another purpose such as making employment decisions for a particular occupation… validity can be estimated several ways depending on the nature and purpose of a test. Content validity refers to the degree to which the content of a test is representative of the domain it’s supposed to cover. Criterion-related validity is estimated by correlating subjects’ scores on an independent criterion (another measure) of the trait addressed by the test
What a does an IQ score mean in the modern way in which they are constructed and interpreted (that is, with respect to a normal distribution of scores)?
Comment: The raw score one gets on an IQ test or other tests that are standardized (with norms, and usually with a specified mean and standard deviation) is simply the sum of the items correctly answered. These raw scores are then converted into a standardized score, so that IQ scores from different tests (variants of the same test or different tests entirely) are comparable. Thus an IQ score of 107 means the same thing across tests and individuals, even though the raw scores on the tests may be different. This is most obvious with children. A six year-old child who completed an IQ test and received an IQ score of 100, and who then completed the same IQ test when they were ten years old and again got an IQ score of 100, would not have gotten the same raw score on both attempts. The child would have answered more questions correctly at ten years of age. The raw score would have been higher for the second test, but compared to the population of ten-year-old children, the child’s IQ score would still have been 100.
Describe a normal distribution with respect to its characteristic shape. In a normal distribution, where are the mean and median (fiftieth percentile) located?
see pg 47. It would be like a bell shape or like a a camel hump or something. figure 2.9 shows a normal distribution - the horizontal axis shows how far above or below the MEAN a score is . The vertical axis shows the number of cases obtaining each score. 50 th percentile would be right in the middle.
What, by convention, is the mean of an IQ score distribution? And the standard deviation?
Comment: A normal distribution (normal curve), as shown in textbook Figure 9.8, should not be read as a line graph. The line only marks out a specific, bell-shaped space, and it’s the area “under the curve” (under the line) that matters. The shape of the curve, and specifically the areas under each section of it, are identical for all normal distributions, no matter what they measure. The area between the mean and a deviation score of +1 is always the same for any normal distribution—for instance, 34% of the entire population.
