Chap 9: Intelligence and psychological testing (1)

Question 1

What is said about those who adopt an entity theory of intelligence?

Answer 1

People who adopt an entity theory of intelligence believe that intelligence is fixed at birth and is not affected by experiences or attempts to change it.

Question 2

What is said about those who adopt an incremental theory of intelligence?

Answer 2

Those who adopt an incremental theory of intelligence believe that their intelligence can be changed by effort and seeking out formative experiences.

Question 3

Define psychological test.

Answer 3

• A psychological test is a standardized measure of a sample of a person’s behavior.
• They’re used to measure the individual differences
• Measures intelligence, aptitudes,
  interests, and aspects of personality

Question 4

Define intelligence tests.

Answer 4

• Intelligence tests measure general mental ability
• Measure the intellectual potential

Question 5

_______ tests are also designed to measure potential and can assess specific types of mental abilities.

Answer 5

Aptitude tests.

Question 6

What makes achievement tests different from aptitude tests?

Answer 6

Achievement tests have a specific focus, but they’re supposed to measure previous learning instead of potential.

Question 7

Define personality tests.

Answer 7

Personality tests measure various aspects of personality, including motives, interests, values, and attitudes.

Question 8

What is a limitation of psychological tests?

Answer 8

Your responses to a psychological test represent a sample of your behavior. The word sample should
alert you to one of the key limitations of psychological tests:

A particular behavior sample may not be representative of your characteristic behavior.

Question 9

Define standardization.

Answer 9

Standardization refers to the uniform procedures used in the administration and scoring of a test.

Question 10

Define test norms.

Answer 10

Test norms are rules to compare a person’s answers to the answers of other test-takers in the same group.

For example, the average IQ when using a standardized intelligence test is about 100

Question 11

The sample of people that the norms are based on is called a ___________

Answer 11

The sample of people that the norms are based on is called a test’s standardization group.

Question 12

Why are test norms needed?

Answer 12

Because in psychological testing, everything is relative.

Psychological tests tell you how you score relative to other people.

They tell you, for instance, that you are average in creativity or slightly above average in clerical ability

Question 13

_________ allows you to convert your raw score into a percentile.

Answer 13

Test norms.

Question 14

Define percentile.

Answer 14

A percentile is a comparison score between a particular score and the scores of the rest of a group.

It shows the percentage of scores that a particular score surpassed.

For ex, if you score 75 points on a test, and are ranked in the 85th percentile, it means that the score of 75 is higher than 85% of the scores.

Question 15

Define reliability.

Answer 15

Reliability refers to the measurement consistency of a test.

That is, repeated measurements should yield reasonably similar results.

Question 16

What is the widely used approach to measure a test’s reliability?

Answer 16

One widely used approach is to check test-retest reliability, which is estimated by comparing participants’ scores on two administrations of a test.

Question 17

Define validity.

Answer 17

Validity refers to the ability of a test to measure what it was designed to measure

Question 18

What are the techniques used to establish validity?

Answer 18

The most common and useful techniques for establishing validity are content, criterion-related, and construct validity

Question 19

Define content validity.

Answer 19

Content validity refers to the extent to which a test measures a representative of the subject matter under investigation.

Question 20

Define criterion-related validity.

Answer 20

Criterion-related validity is estimated by correlating participants’ scores on a test with their scores on an independent criterion (another measure) of
the trait assessed by the test.

ex: new workers’ aptitude test scores with the dollar value of the computers that each sold are closely co-related.

Question 21

Many psychological tests attempt to measure abstract personal qualities, such as creativity, intelligence, extraversion, or independence.

What is the problem in measuring these abstract qualities(hypothetical constructs)?

Answer 21

In measuring abstract qualities, psychologists are concerned about construct validity—the extent to which there is evidence that a test measures a particular hypothetical construct.

Question 22

How can you get evidence of a test’s construct validity?

Answer 22

Ultimately, it’s the overall pattern
of correlations between the test being developed and tests assessing related concepts that provides convincing evidence of a test’s construct validity