Lecture 3 Use of Intelligence Tests Flashcards
What is IQ associated with?
Benson (2003) The capacity of intelligence tests to predict intellectual performance is overplayed, over stated and over emphasised
Used for: selection, diagnosis, evaluation
Intelligence and education
General intelligence correlates with academic achievement
Jencks (1979): meta analysis of 6 longitudinal studies
correlation between 0.40 and 0.63
Kaufman (1990), Kaufman and Lichtenberger (2005): review of key papers
correlation around 0.50
But, does higher intelligence lead to better educational achievement…
… or does better education lead to higher intelligence?
Neisser et al. (1996)
Intelligence and education - Deary et al.
Deary et al. (2007): Prospective, longitudinal study of 70,000 + participants: IQ age 11 and achievement age 16
Why does IQ correlate with school performance?
IQ measures intelligence
Ability to take tests – work to time, read questions thoroughly, etc.
Inflated by motivation (Duckworth et al., 2011)
Why doesn’t it correlate perfectly?
Contribution of other factors – amount of effort, illness (hayfever), teaching quality, etc.
Specific abilities
Duckworth (2011) Role of test motivation in intelligence testing
Study 1: does motivation affect IQ test results? -Effect size: medium-large; greater for below-average pupils - therefore IQ score less reliable indicator of intelligence
Study 2: Does motivation confound the association between intelligence and later life-outcomes?
Job performance
Intelligence tests are also reliably associated with job performance
IQ can be a better measure than other recruitment measures
Hunter & Hunter (1984)
Meta-analysis including 32,000 workers (Hunter & Hunter, 1984)
correlation between IQ and job performance = 0.54
This was a better link to job performance than:
CV: 0.37
previous experience: 0.18
job interview: 0.14
education: 0.10
Bertua et al. (2005)
Bertua et al. (2005) UK meta analysis with over 13,000 participants: IQ scores correlated with job performance and training success, around 0.5 - 0.6
Specific cognitive abilities and job type & IQ
Specific cognitive abilities (subtests)
lowest: spatial ability and job performance: 0.35
highest: perceptual ability and job performance: 0.5
lowest: spatial ability and training success: 0.42
highest: numerical ability and training success: 0.54
Job type and IQ
job performance in clerical occupations: 0.32
job performance in professional occupations: 0.74
Advantages of IQ for recruitment
Advantages of IQ for recruitment:
good predictor of job performance
quick and easy to administer, cheap
good in situations where other measures aren’t possible (e.g., work-sample tests)
Good as one part of recruitment process (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998)
Tests of integrity add 27% to predictive power
Work sample / structured interview: add 24%
Health and mortality
What else can IQ predict?
In 1932, every school child in Scotland who was born in 1921 took the same IQ test (n = 89,498)
In 1947, the exercise was repeated for all children born in 1936 (n = 70,805)
Deary et al. (2004): 1947 cohort
People who had died had a lower average IQ (age 11) than people who had not
mean IQ of those who died: 97.7
mean IQ of those still alive: 104.6
Batty et al. (2009)
Up to 2010, Swedish men were conscripted into national service, and undertook an IQ test
Batty et al. (2009) found that IQ was associated with an increased risk of overall mortality, but not mediated by:
blood pressure
body mass index
cigarette smoking
Education level was a significant mediator
Batty et al. (2007)
Parental intelligence, socioeconomic environment, nutrition, somatic and psychiatric illness
IQ
Disease and injury prevention, Disease injury management, High socioeconomic position, psychiatric illness
Mortality
Calvin et al. (2011)
Calvin et al. (2011) conducted a meta analysis of 16 studies that looked at IQ and mortality
They found that an increase of one standard deviation in IQ scores (15 points) was associated with a 24% lower risk of death
Other things linked to IQ
General intelligence also predicts poverty, the likelihood of being in prison, being divorced and unemployed (Gottfredson, 1997)
But it can be challenging to separate effects of IQ and socioeconomic status
Emotional intelligence and wellbeing
Higher emotional intelligence is associated with good health and wellbeing
Meta-analysis of 44 studies (~8,000 participants) (Shutte et al., 2007)
Higher emotional intelligence associated with:
better physical health (0.22)
better mental health (0.29)
Other associations for emotional intelligence
Studies also show associations with:
Coping behaviours (Mikolajczak & Luminet, 2008)
Increased life satisfaction: (Externera & Fernandez-Berrocal, 2005)
Higher levels of happiness (Chamorro-Premuzic et al., 2007)
Teacher-rated positive behaviour (+ve correlation) and negative behaviour (-ve correlation) (Mavroveli et al., 2008)
Emotional intelligence and job performance
Mixed evidence for a link with education and job performance [reviews by Charbonneau and Nicol (2002) and van der Zee et al. (2002)]
‘Compensatory’ model (Petrides et al., 2005; Cote & Miners, 2006)
The relationship between emotional intelligence and achievement becomes positive as general intelligence decreases
Emotional intelligence predicts achievement better in people with lower general intelligence
Limitations of intelligence test using
So many positive correlations make it easy to have confidence in intelligence tests
But… two things to consider
- Predictive strength of IQ tests fluctuates
- IQ tests do not tell you everything
Incomplete data:
President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education (PCESE, 2002)
-Recommended that intelligence tests should not be used to diagnose intellectual disabilities
-IQ tests too limited: No info on what to do to support the child’s learning or develop an education programme
But: Kaufman and Kaufman (2001) IQ tests must be administered by specially-trained practitioners who would take a broad approach
Summary of IQ links
IQ is associated with education and job performance, mortality, poverty, being in prison, being divorced, and being unemployed
The mechanism that links IQ to all these other factors is likely to include
the effect of parenting, genes, and environment on IQ
the effect of IQ on lifestyle choices and environment
The Flynn Effect
Year on year, scores on intelligence tests are going up, all over the world
If a person with average intelligence from 1940 sat today’s test, they would be assigned an IQ of 70
How was the Flynn effect discovered?
Remember: IQ tests are ‘normed’ to have a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15
When an IQ test is updated, the same people sit the old test and the new test
Flynn noticed that people consistently got a higher IQ on the old tests