Unit 11: Testing and Individual Difference Flashcards
The ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations
Intelligence
According to Spearman and others, underlies all mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test.
General Intelligence (g)
A statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test, used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie a person’s total score
Factor analysis
A condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as computation or drawing
Savant syndrome
In psychology, this is passion and perseverance in the pursuit of long-term goals.
Grit
The ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions
Emotional intelligence
A method for assessing an individual’s mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores
Intelligence Test
A test designed to predict a person’s future performance aptitude is the capacity to learn
Aptitude test
A test designed to assess what a person has learned
Achievement test
A measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet, the level of performance is usually associated with children of a certain chronological age. Thus, a child who does well as an average 8-year-old is said to have the mental age of 8.
Mental Age
The widely used American revision (by Terman at Stanford University of Binet’s original intelligence test)
Stanford-Binet
Defined originally as the ratio of mental age (ma) to chronological age (ca) multiplied by 100 (thus, ma/ca x 100). On contemporary intelligence tests, the average performance for a given age is a score of 100.
Intelligence Quotient (IQ)
This test and its companion versions for children are the most widely used intelligence tests; they contain verbal and performance (nonverbal) subtests
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)
Defining uniform testing procedures and meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group
Standartization
The bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many physical and psychological attributes. Most scores fall near the average, and fewer and fewer score near extremes.
Normal curve
The extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, on alternative forms of the test, or on retesting
Reliability
The extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to
Validity
The extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest
Content Validity
The success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict; it is assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and correlation behavior
Predictive validity
A group of people sharing a common characteristic, such as from a given time period
Cohort
Our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills, tends to increase with age
Crystallized Intelligence
Our ability to reason speedily and abstractly, tends to decrease with age, especially during late adulthood
Fluid Intelligence
Research that compares people of different ages at the same point in time
Cross-sectional study
Research that follows and retests the same people over time
Longitudinal Study
A condition of limited mental ability, indicated by an intelligence test score of 70 or below and difficulty adapting to the demands of life
Intellectual Disability
A condition of mild to sever intellectual disability and associated physical disorders caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21
Down syndrome
The proportion of variation among individuals in a group that we can attribute to genes, The reliability of a trait may vary, depending on the range of populations and environments studied
Heritability
A self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype.
Stereotype Threat
Observed rise over time in standardized intelligence test scores
Flynn Effect
