CH 9 Flashcards
Intelligence and Psychological Testing
What is intelligence?
- no common definition, makes is hard to study and measure
- the capacity for goal-directed & adaptive behavior
- individual differences in the ability to acquire knowledge, think & reason effectively and deal adaptively with the environment
- ability to apply and acquire knowledge and skills
What are the 5 aspects of Psychological Testing
1- Mental ability 2- personality scales 3- standardization 4- test norms 5- standardization groups
Describe 3 tests involved with Mental Ability Testing
Intelligence Tests: measure general mental ability
Aptitude Test: assess specific mental abilities
Achievement Test: gauge subjects knowledge and mastery
Describe Personality Scales (psych testing)
- measure various aspects of personality such as motives, interests, values, and attitudes
Describe Standardization
uniform procedures in administering and scoring test
Describe Test Norms
in order to standardize- provide info about where a score on test ranks in relation to other scores
Describe Standardization Groups
- sample who norms are based on
- should be based on a large sample to get a good curve
- should be representative of the population
What is reliability and 2 ways of measuring it?
Reliability= measurement consistency of a test
1- test-retest reliability
2- correlation coefficients
What is Test-Retest Reliability?
= do you get same results on 2 trials of same test?
- ex: introvert vs extrovert testing shouldn’t change in 2 weeks, take same test twice spaced out. if changes dramatically unreliable testing
How do Correlation Coefficients relate to reliability?
determine reliability using correlation correfficients
- closer to +1.00 the more reliable (-1 means did exact opposite than first time, only want + scores on test-retest)
- scatterplot, angles upward and to larger numbers = good test correlation
What is validity and 3 types?
Validity= test measures what its supposed to measure
- Content validity
- Criterion-related validity
- Construct validity
What is Content Validity
- content of the test is representative of the topic
What is Criterion-related validity
- predictive ability (see how it would predict a related variable ex: grad score aptitude test score correlates well to actual performance in grad school)
What is Construct Validity
- test measures a particular construct (not measuring the love of dogs when looking for intelligence)
How did Francis Galton contribute to First Intelligence Test?
- cousin of Charles Darwin
- studies family trees- found success appeared to be passed down through generations
- coined nature vs nurture
- coined eugenics (selective breeding of perfect people to create master human race)
- invented concept of correlation
- initial intelligence test no good but set path for future
- superior intelligence correlated with sensory processes skill like reaction time, grip strength- tested these factors well
How did Alfred Binet contribute to First Intelligence Tests?
1904
- 2 assumptions (mental abilities develop with age, rate of development is stable individual characteristics)
- created Binet-Simon scale which was critiqued by William Stern
What is the Binet-Simon Scale?
1905
child’s score= mental age
- one of the first successful intelligence tests
What were William Stern’s critiques of the Binet-Simon scale?
- mental quotient of 4yr old (2/4= .5) is more problematic than mental quotient of 10 yr old (8/10=.8)
- their scale is showing that they are both equally mentally disabled because 2 yrs behind - not the case
How did Lewis Terman contribute to First Intelligence Testing?
- Stanford-Binet Scale (1916)
- intelligence quotient (IQ)= mental age/chronological age *100
- peforming at age level = 100 score (50 yo or 8yo)
- scale centered at 100
- 10/8 *100 = 125, 15/12 *100= 125, = even though different
How did David Weschler contribute to First Intelligence testing?
- Weschler’s adult intelligence scale (1939)
- first high-quality IQ test for adults
- verbal and non-verbal ability (both tested separately but combined score)
- score based on normal distribution (still called IQ but now on a normal bell curve
- center is still 100 as an average, standard deviation (how much the scores in data set cluster around the mean) is 15
What is factor analysis (structure of intelligence)?
= correlatins among many variables are analyzed to identify closely related clusters of variables
* correlation does not = causation
How did Spearman contribute to the structure of intelligence?
Spearman: g= general mental ability (venn diagram with 4 corners) all factors are correlated by “g”
How did Thurstone contribute to the structure of intelligence?
Thurstone: several factors of intelligence
– performance on IQ test is combo of primary mental abilities (image of the ring of factors)
What is Fluid Intelligence (structure of intelligence)?
= reasoning ability, memory capaciyt, processing speed
