Exploring Validity with Intelligence Testing

Question 1

what is validity?

Answer 1

degree to which the test actually measures what it purports to measure

Question 2

what is the problem with the definition of validity?

Answer 2

do not really purport to measure anything, instead people do

Question 3

how does cattell suggest intelligence?

Answer 3

assessed by psychological tasks, such as judging which of two sounds was larger or which of the two weights were heavier

Question 4

Wissler’s flawed validation of a psychophysical tests of intelligence in the Cattell tradition was..

Answer 4

…largely responsible for the twilight of the psychophysical test era of intelligence testing and the dawn of the era of judgemental tests in the Binet-Simon tradition

Question 5

test validity

Answer 5

extent to which a test accurately measures what it is supposed to measure

Question 6

internal reliability

Answer 6

different items within a test correlate positively with one another, suggesting they are measuring the same construct
* high reliability -> all of the items are indicated to be measuring the exact same thing

Question 7

test-retest reliability

Answer 7

The reliability of a test over time. So, if the same person took an intelligence test at different points in time, you would expect the result to be similar.

Question 8

how do we test-retest reliability in circumstances?

Answer 8

the split-half method can be used to test this

Question 9

what are some ways in which intelligence tests have been / are used

Answer 9

• selection within education
• job selection
• managing immigration
• diagnosis

Question 10

why is test validity important?

Answer 10

need to make sure a test is measuring what we think it’s measuring

Question 11

what do we risk without test validity?

Answer 11

drawing false conclusions from its results

Question 12

what is a problem with test validity?

Answer 12

it often creates a closed system -> makes the test look good regardless of what it is

Question 13

what’s the opinion of new tests departing from old tests?

Answer 13

even if it’s better, the worse the test looks

Question 14

internal-consistency reliability

Answer 14

commonly important parts of the psychometric analyses, value items within a test to the extent they are too like each other

Question 15

what does reliability analyse and validity analyse do?

Answer 15

reliability maximises similarties among items and validity maximise similarities among the tests

Question 16

what is the problem with correlating tests with school grades?

Answer 16

whatever it is that leads to high school grades is the assumption that it leads to high scores of intelligence tests

Question 17

what is the Definitional (componential) theory [words can be decomposed into elementary defining components]

Answer 17

ability to learn present challenges because it is not clear there is any single, unitary ability to learn

Question 18

what is the prototype theory of intelligence -> more of these typical features that characterise a person, the more intelligence the person is

Answer 18

suggest prototype of intelligence with characteristic features such as practical, problem-solving ability, verbal ability and social competence

Question 19

what is the multiple-exemplar theory of intelligence?

Answer 19

there are no finding features of intelligence, nor is there any single abstract prototype, rather implicit theories that reside in people’s heads that are based on multiple exemplar of the tagrte, intelligence
* to the extent the intelligent is truly about adaption to the environment, people’s theories of intelligence will be formed on the basis of multiple exemplar of adaptive success

Question 20

what is prosocial implicit theory?

Answer 20

• standardised tests / right school / doing well matter throughout the students’ career -> can be used to track students and college admissions
• test are a good prediction of school performance and job attainment
• those who do worse -> won’t get better jobs and may be associated with failure to get jobs
• correlation of test scores with school grades higher than test scores with job performance
• because conventional tests were originally designed and continue to be designed primarily to predict school performance and related constructs
• even in the academic domain, ability tests may predict grades substantially better than they predict other interesting aspects of school performance

Question 21

asocial or antisocial theory of intelligence

Answer 21

• success -> learning tactile rules of a particular culture
• students see that those who are succedding in their culture are not the ones who have done well in school, but those who have figured out how to play by an entirely different set of rules
• the gaining of respect may be as important as the gaining of money. Higher school performance may actually be associated with reduced respect
• even in the legitimate world of work, high scores on tests that predict success especially in the work environment may be unrelated to high scores on generalized ability and achievement tests because the tacit knowledge needed for success in the workplace is such a far cry from that leading to success in academic and related school-like environments

Question 22

what does Vernon (1969) suggest about Western tests?

Answer 22

would likely be invalid for selecting people in Nigeria for non-Western types of jobs.

Question 23

what happened during the middle age when it came to intelligence?

Answer 23

• those who were born as serfs died as serfs, independent of their IQ or ability to master academic topics that were largely irrelevant to their lives. Those who were born nobles died as nobles, regardless of their mental abilities. The opportunities were theirs, regardless of what they did with them.
• in many time periods, the law of primogeniture guaranteed that firstborns would receive the benefits of inheritance, regardless of their intellectual or other competencies relative to their siblings.

Question 23

what is a disadvantage of the notion of intelligence

Answer 23

abstract continuum that exists in a vacuum is simply a false notion

Question 24

intelligence is the match between…

Answer 24

a person’s talents and the talents that are valued in a sociocultural context

Question 25

how does intelligence depend on context?

Answer 25

people form theories about the individuals whom they believe are intelligent and thus whom they model as successful and then try to emulate their success. But they choose different role models, depending on their contexts, and their different exemplars of intelligence lead them to develop intelligence in different ways, which may or may not match what conventional tests measure.

Question 26

intelligence is potentially interaction between…?

Answer 26

person and the exemplars of intelligence modeled in the context in which the individual lives

Question 27

how does role modelling lead to intelligence?

Answer 27

young people identify people who serve as role models or exemplars of success -> then form potentially complex implicit theories of what it is that leads these people to success -> then try to follow the precepts of their own implicit theories (implicit theories may be prosocial, asocial, or antisocial, but they motivate behavior all the same) -> the extent that what they value departs from what conventional academic kinds of situations value, the theories that may lead individuals to believe that they are acting intelligently might lead a societal establishment to conclude that the individuals are not acting intelligently

Question 28

what is a limitation of intelligence tests?

Answer 28

they are themselves of doubtful validity, products of a closed system that values whatever happens to be valued by those who happen to be in power, whether politically, socially, or intellectually.

Question 29

what is reliability?

Answer 29

degree to which the result of a measurement, calculation, or specification can be depended on to be accurate