Mental Abilities

Question 1

What are mental abilities?

Answer 1

Capacity to perform the higher mental processss of reasoning, remembering, understanding and problem solving.

Question 2

What did Blackwell et al look at in relation to 7th graders?

Answer 2

Learning trajectories - belief that intelligence is malleable - upward trajectory in graders while a belief that intelligence is fixed - predicted flat trajectory.

Question 3

What are the three factors of implicit theories?

Answer 3

• verbal intelligence
• problem solving
• practical intelligence.

Question 4

Why don’t theories cover all intelligence?

Answer 4

Define scope psychological construct - whole remain or useful subtract.

Question 5

What did Alfrad Binet commission?

Answer 5

Techniques for identifying children who needed special education.

Question 6

What was Binets scale?

Answer 6

Age level assigned to each reasoning task - mental age

Question 7

What was Binets goal?

Answer 7

Identification and education - identifying students in need of remedial education.

Question 8

What were Binets stipulations and how do this differ from those by American Goddard?

Answer 8

Scores are a practical device
Scale is rough
Low scores DO NOT mark children as innately incapable

Goddard - score as a measure of a single innate entity used to prevent immigration of morons.

Question 9

What did Lewis Terman do with Binets test?

Answer 9

Revised as the Stanford-Binet test

Average us mental age 16 - standard for which others were validated.

Question 10

What was the main problem with the Stanford-Binet test?

Answer 10

Difficult to compare intellectual performance across age levels.
Only works if mental age increases proportionally with chronological age.

Question 11

What is the formula for deviation IQ?

Answer 11

Z = X-M/SD

Question 12

What are the two levels of intelligence as a construct?

Answer 12

Observable variables - what we can see

Unobservable variables - what we infer.

Question 13

What are constructs?

Answer 13

Theoretical terms which cannot be directly observed but assumed to exist because they give rise to measurable phenomena.

Question 14

What are the four subsets of cognitive ability?

Answer 14

Verbal reasoning
Abstract/visual reasoning
Quantitative reasoning
Short-term memory

Question 15

What is the layout of the IQ test?

Answer 15

Vocab test - entry level to other tests

Establishment of basal and ceiling level

Question 16

What is the raw score calculates from?

Answer 16

Item number of highest test administered minus total number of attempted items failed.

Question 17

According to the Gf-Gc Theory by cattell what is fluid intelligence and what is crystallised intelligence?

Answer 17

Fluid (Gf) - ability to grass between things

Crystallised - acquired knowledge and skills

Question 18

What are some examples of gf and gc?

Answer 18

Gf - sequential reasoning, quantitive reasoning

Gc - verbal comprehension, spelling ability, foreign language aptitude

Question 19

What are the developmental trends of gf-gc theory?

Answer 19

Fluid - rises to young adulthood and then falls with age.

Crystallised - rises and plateaus

Question 20

What are the two components of theory?

Answer 20

True score and an error component.

Question 21

What are the types of errors?

Answer 21

Test construction
Test administration
Errors in scoring
Interpretation subjectivity

Question 22

What is reliability?

Answer 22

Ratio of the true score variance to observed score variance.