CHAPTER 10- INTELLIGENCE Flashcards
(37 cards)
What is Intelligence?
The ability to solve novel problems and learn from experience
What are the 4 questions asked about Intelligence?
- How can it be measured?
- What is it?
- Where does it come from?
- Why are some people more intelligent than others?
Q1. How Can Intelligence Be Measured?
There are at least 3 different types of tests of mental abilities; only one is a test of intelligence
What are the 3 types of tests of mental abilities?
- Intelligence
- Aptitude
- Achievement
What is the Intelligence Tests?
Samples multiple mental abilites
Example: WAIS has 10 subtests
What is the Aptitude Test?
Predicts future performance or most likely to succeed + predicts the ability to learn
Example: SAT measures verbal & math
What is Achievement Tests?
It assesses what a person has learned; “Did you achieve what you were supposed to achieve”
Example: reading at a grade 9 level
What are the 3 Principles of Test Construction?
- Standardization
- to obtain an average score for a large representative sample (ex. obtain norms) - Reliability
- refers to consistency
- the test must yield similar scores each time it is given - Validity
- refers to accuracy
- the test must actually measure what it claims to measure
What is the Flynn Effect?
- Flynn was the researcher who noticed that there is evidence that intelligence has been increasing over generations, not decreasing
- refers to the fact that the average IQ score today is higher than it was a century ago- this is due to imporved nutrition, schooling, and parenting
How is Reliability and Validity measured?
- is measured with a correlation coefficient (r)
what is Reliability?
- includes test-retest method + split-half method
what is the Test-retest method?
- is a method of reliability
- it uses correlation (-1 to +1)
what is Validity?
- criterion
- uses 2 methods of validity: content validity + predictive validity
what is criterion?
a behaviour the test is trying to measure or predict
(ex. driving, GPA)
what is Content Validity?
- is a method of validity
- how well the test samples the criterion
what is predictive Validity?
- is a method of validity
- how well the test predicts the criterion
(SAT r GPA)
what is the relationship between reliability and validity? can a test be reliable but not valid? can a test be valid but not reliable?
The relationship:
: validity requires reliability, but reliability does not require validity
can a test be reliable but not valid:
- yes, a 50 meter dash is not a valid measure of I.Q. but test-retest r is high
can a test be valid but not reliable?
- no, if a test is not reliable it can’t be measuring anything with accuracy
Why did the nation’s average SAT scores drop in the ’60s-‘70s in the USA?
- because they failed to re-standardize the SAT
- people who take the SAT, all individually vary to those compared who took it years ago
- this is because populations change overtime
Why were intelligence test originally created?
- They were created by Alfred Binet and William Stern to detect children who were struggling in school in France
- they assembled a test to measure the child’s aptitude of learning
What is the difference between Ratio IQ and deviation IQ?
Ratio IQ:
- a metric obtained by dividing a child;s mental age by the child’s physical age and then multiplying the quotient by 100
Deviation IQ:
- is a metric obtained by dividing a person’s test score by the average test score for people that age and then multiplying the quotient by 100
What is the most widely use modern test of intelligence (WAIS)?
- the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, developed by David Wechsler
- it measures intelligence by asking people to answer questions and solve problems
What is Factor Analysis?
is a term to describe a set of statistical method that is used to evaluate relationships among a set of observed relationships
What are Spearman’s g and s?
Spearman’s factor analysis found:
1. ALL mental abilities correlate to some degree; general cognitive ability (implies g)
2. but some correlated more than others; specific abilities (implies s)
- therefore he proposed a two-factory theory of intelligence
What is Spearman’s Two Factor Theory?
- suggests that a person’s performance on a test is due to a combination of general cognitive ability and specific abilities that are unique to the test
- success at a task requires both: general intelligence and specific skills