gould

Question 1

research method

Answer 1

• quasi experimental method: naturally occuring IV is the ethnic origin of the participants (e.g. white amerian, black american, russian, italian, polish). the DV is the average mental age of the recruits from the various ethnic backgrounds based on their results in the tests of native intellectual ability

Question 2

data

Answer 2

• collected quantitative data as yerkes yielded numerical values for the number of correct answers scored by recruits on the tests
• this allowed compariso on the basis of the mens ethnic backgrounds.

Question 3

how is yerkes study unethical

Answer 3

• protection from harm: gould analysed that it is likely that many recruits were in a state of heightened anxiety as they took the tests given their inability to make sense of what they were being asked to do and the rushed chaotic conditions in which many of the tests were conditioned
• right to withdraw: recruits were unable to withdraw from the test
• informed consent: recruits were told nothing about the examination or its purposes

Question 4

validity

Answer 4

• low construct validity: gould claims that yerkes tests were an inaccurate measure of intelligence and is instead a representation of their native intellectual ability (a measure of siuch things as how much schooling theyr had which was out of their control)
• a persons score could also reflect which army camp a recruited happened to be in and whether the definition of literatate had been lowered so far as to mean that people who ought to have taken the beta test were reassigned to the alpha test.
• the tests were measuring many other things than a persons native intellectual ability

Question 5

reliability

Answer 5

• high internal reliability: the tests were standardised in such a way that all of the people taking the tests would receive the same questions
• they ensured that the army beta was equivalent in level of difficulty to the army alpha with the only difference being that it was designed for illiterate recruits
  -yerkes also laid down very clear instructions about how the tests were to be administered
• high external reliability: large enough sample to establish a consistent effect (1.75 million)

Question 5

sample

Answer 5

• sample was limited by consisting only of males and within a certain age
• sampling bias so it lacks any generalisability

Question 6

nature

nature/nurture

Answer 6

• yerkes believed that intelligence was innate.

Question 7

ethnocentric

Answer 7

• not ethnocentric: the men tested by yerkes were from a wide range of different ethnic backgrounds
• ethnocentric: the tests had questions which presupposes familiarity with western and usa based questions- it only favoured those people who had lived in the USA the longest and were culturally based

Question 8

nurture

nature/nurture

Answer 8

• the way that the tests were designed meant that peoples scores were always going to be affected by the environment such as how long they had lived in the USA and how much education they had receieved

Question 9

psychology as a science

Answer 9

• yerked was trying to create a standarises way of testing that was replicable
• the scores achieved by each individual on their tests could be seen as objective in the sense that the scor a person got was a fact and not an opinion
• however, it is unfalsifiable as ‘Tutonic supermarcists’ argued that being a recent arrival to the USA was not the explanation for why Latins and slavs performed poorly on the tests, rather it was due to the poor genetic stock of those people who had recently arrived to the USA

Question 10

socially sensitive

Answer 10

• it offends those who are the same ethnicities of the people in the study who scored poorly as yerkes claims that ethnicity relates to levels of intelliegnce.
• the uses of the findings helped lead to the passing of the** immigration restriction act in 1924**. which causes offense
• Goulds review made it clear that it would be hard to argue that Yerkws IQ tests achieved to passing laws in support of the political agenda views e.g. eugenics

Question 11

how does goulds study link to individual differences

Answer 11

it is reviewing an attemt by yerkes to develop a way of measuring how individuals differ in terms of their native intellectual ability

Question 12

key theme of gould study

Answer 12

measuring differences

Question 13

how does goulds research link to the key theme

Answer 13

• goulds review of yerke appears to tell us that it is extraordinarily difficult and that the researchers working inn this area need to take care not to isolate the variable that they want to measure