1 Haq

Alina Haq

ENG 1201

Prof. Echols

10/29/21

How are Intelligence Tests Biased?

Though intelligence is a very abstract term that’s subjective to an individual's interpretation, one

way of measuring someone’s mental ability is by using intelligence quotient tests. Intelligence

tests have served as a notable tool to measure reasoning and problem-solving skills. There is a

great disparity in the performance of intelligence tests in diverse populations due to the fact that

intelligence tests contain the presence of cultural bias. This bias causes them to be unreliable in

diverse settings that contain environmental factors set apart from western society.

The definition of intelligence can be interpreted as the general mental ability for reasoning,

problem-solving, and learning. Intelligence can be measured by IQ tests which is a tool used to

predict a variety of outcomes in an individual’s future, specifically education. Intelligence tests

are an indicator of how well someone can use information and logic to answer questions or make

predictions. They are used to determine a human’s “mental hardware” compared to the statistical

average of their age (Colum/A Mouse). The first intelligence quotient (IQ) test was developed by

Alfred Binet in 1905. Binet created the IQ test to distinguish which students would need more

help/assistance in the educational environment. However, since IQ tests were designed in

America and Europe, they resulted in performance differences when used in culturally diverse

contexts. Though intelligence tests can be an insightful source to measure one’s mental

capabilities, there are many ways these tests can be a hindrance to one’s educational future.
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Intelligence tests are computed based on the average of one’s intellectual ability. The test uses

mental age divided by actual age to calculate one’s IQ. Although, the average intelligence can

differ between generations the average IQ score is skewed to be always 100. IQ rankings are

scored compared to this number to determine if you have above, below, or average IQ. Higher

scores indicate that one has a lot of intellectual potential/ability whereas low IQ scores indicate

that one has a learning disability or has limited cognitive ability. People with higher IQ scores

tend to have high levels of education, larger incomes, less crime rate, and even better health. On

the opposite side of the spectrum, there is a correlation between people having lower IQs and

having behavioral problems, poor social skills, and difficulty in problem-solving (Haverford

College). Though IQ tests do not serve as a definite means of measuring intelligence, they can be

useful in determining someone’s intellectual ability.

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Although IQ tests have a correlation between intelligence and education, the test is flawed in the

way that it does not account for the human’s complex nature or cultural predisposition. The

concern in these IQ tests lies in the low scores exhibited by diverse students. Results of IQ tests

have shown that certain groups of people- African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native

Americans- are more likely to perform poorly compared to white people. Haverford College has

found that there have been patterns in the results of diverse populations and that there are

apparent trends in the way these diverse groups perform on IQ tests. However, as observed, this

trend is not due to genetic racial bias but rather the testing bias itself. In essence, the test’s

cultural bias causes low test scores amongst diverse students.

Due to these low test scores, racially and linguistically diverse students are seemingly

underrepresented in gifted programs and overrepresented in learning disability education. In

cases where students perform low on IQ tests, they may be labeled as mentally retarded or as

having learning disabilities. This results in receiving special education. When put into

classrooms where children have learning disabilities, it is often very hard to identify as gifted

later on in their education career. Furthermore, these children will put less effort into school as

they have been labeled as mentally retarded (Ford). It is very important that labels, in this

scenario, IQ scores, do not define a person’s intelligence. By assigning IQ scores to individuals,

it allows for a mental blockage for self-diminishment and societal documentation of being below

average in the spectrum of IQ testing. This has sparked controversy about whether people are

testing poorly due to genetic factors or whether the test is in and of itself biased.
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Many studies have concluded that the low test performance of these diverse groups is not in fact

due to genetics. Rather, a big role in how people perform on IQ tests stems from how they come

from different cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds. The article published by Haverford

College argues that a person’s mere disposition of where they were born and how they were

brought up plays a larger part in how they perform on intelligence tests than genetics. This gives

some insight into the nature-nurture debate. The debate has been an ongoing discussion amongst

the scientific community on whether human behavior is determined by the environment rather

than a person’s genes. Without the right information, this may cause one to deduce that diverse

students are genetically inferior compared to the white population.

Though culture does not affect one's intelligence, culture plays a role in how someone performs

on IQ tests. Culture can be defined as the collective beliefs, attitudes, traditions, customs, and

behaviors that serve as a filter through which a group of people views and responds to the world

(Erickson, 2004; Ford & Harris, 1999; Ford et al., 2002; Hall, 1976). These cultural differences

can affect a student’s communication style, learning style, thinking style, and thus test-taking

style. These variations in diverse groups can account for the fact that African, Hispanic, and
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Native Americans perform worse on IQ tests than namely white populations (Ford). Due to the

fact that intelligence tests contain cultural bias, measuring.

Tests can be biased in a multitude of ways, whether it be selection, data collection, or method

bias. Nonetheless, bias in tests can cause unfairness amongst groups, thus leading to

discrimination. As mentioned above, IQ tests are scored based on the statistical average of those

who take the test. However, racially and linguistically diverse groups are not well-represented in

the standardization of the tests. For example, Native Americans make up about 2% of the United

States population. However, when standardizing the IQ test to determine the average, Native

Americans are represented to less than 2% of the sampled population. It is essential to have a

representative sample in order to generalize the population of the IQ tests. These diverse groups

of people come from families that speak different languages, have different traditions, and

socio-cultural backgrounds. Because of this, using these tests to determine a diverse student’s

intelligence does not prove to be valid or reliable. Having the sample size of the given population

be accurately represented is a step in the right direction to reduce cultural bias in intelligence

testing.

It has further been proven that intelligence tests favor specifically the white middle-class is

strongly favored when measuring intelligence. For example the test- content is more well-known

to white populations than that of Blacks or Native Americans. Furthermore, the speech used on

the test may be more familiar to whites than African Americans who have different dialects and

use different slang depending on the location of where they were born and raised. These all

account for the fact that diverse populations do seemingly worse on intelligence tests compared
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to white populations. The test is embedded with test content that favors white but disserves

diverse populations.

Intelligence tests contain test item bias which in definition means a question that is phrased or

expressed in a particular way that influences the respondent or test-taker's answer. Diverse

groups come from various multicultural backgrounds. Thus, diverse groups that have not been

exposed to certain questions or the way they are phrased may cause them to misunderstand and

respond differently in ways that negatively affect their score. Additionally, IQ tests’ test content

and information are more familiar to the white population than diverse and minority groups. By

reducing test-item bias, intelligence tests can be used to accurately determine culturally diverse

students’ intellectual potential as well as the white European populations.

One example of how IQ tests were used to discriminate in the classroom was in the court case,

Larry P. v. Riles. In 1984, a the parents of a group of students filed against the State Department

of California claiming that there was an overrepresentation white students in gifted programs and

thus an underrepresentation of diverse students in special needs programs. It was concluded that

IQ tests contained cultural biases of which inhibited diverse students from entering honors

programs, “The court found that the IQ tests were designed with biases linked the white

middle-class culture, leaving black children at a natural disadvantage from both cultural and

racial perspectives” (Scheller) This court case was the beginning of a still ongoing examination

of IQ tests. IQ tests are banned in the state of California when using the scores to determine a

student’s placement in special education. Though IQ tests are a great predictive tool they are still

in great need of improvement in terms of cultural bias.

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One may argue that all tests are culturally biased in some way and that cultural bias cannot

totally be eliminated. Though it is very true that every test is culturally biased in some sense, it is

important that when developing a test all efforts have been made to minimize and reduce bias.

Cultural diversity is increasing in the classroom. It would be obtuse to ignore the growing

populations of linguistically and culturally diverse populations. Intelligence tests can serve as a

great predictive tool to measure one’s intelligence. By no means should IQ tests be eradicated as

they are the best tool to measure an individual's crystal and fluid intelligence. By completely

eliminating IQ tests, humans lose the ability to measure a person’s mental ability as well as their

future social outcomes. As it has been mentioned, these IQ tests can be used for a plethora of

benefits if used on the right population, which at the moment would only be namely white

populations.

People from diverse backgrounds have different experiences, languages, vocabularies, and ideas

they bring with them when taking tests. It is critical that tests take into account these differences

and seek ways to improve and reduce culturally-loaded questions. When using these test scores

on diverse students, these groups can be educationally harmed; it can serve as a barrier from

them entering higher and honorary levels of education. Furthermore, ignoring how intelligence

tests do not take into account the environmental factors of diverse populations, they can be and

treated unequally in the healthcare field, workplace, and the justice system.

In order to reduce the bias that culture plays, tests can focus more on performance-based tests,

abstract figural items, non-verbal content, and non-scholastic skills (Ford). By reducing
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culturally-loaded questions, IQ tests can be more reliable when administering them to diverse

students. For example, questions of the IQ tests may ask what a word means or to select an

answer between two statements that have the most clarity. It is important to note that most of

these culturally loaded questions are in the subjects English/Reading. One reason that diverse

students may be unable to correctly answer comprehensive questions is that they are not given

the same opportunities and experiences to understand and learn the test’s content. Furthermore,

the test’s wording can cause confusion if linguistically diverse students were not taught English

or if English was their second language. By switching over to these types of questions, tests will

be able to avoid culturally meaningful subjects.

A nonverbal visual question that tests abstract thinking/reasoning

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Though it may seem that intelligence tests have been thrown out years ago, they are still used as

a measure of aptitude. These tests are used by companies to select employees, branches in the

military, and even the justice system. However, for the most part, IQ tests are most often used in

educational settings to evaluate whether or not individuals are mentally disabled. The test doesn’t

consider the diverse experiences and backgrounds of minority groups, as ruled by the justice

system in the court case Larry P. vs Riles. Nevertheless, IQ tests are still being administered and

used in the real world to determine one’s intellectual ability even though it is only a predictive

test to measure one’s potential. IQ tests are biased and favor environments and cultures from

which they were developed. Since IQ tests were developed by Europeans to measure white

students’ reasoning ability, they should only be used on white populations. Fundamentally, IQ

tests should be used as a measure of intelligence only for European Americans. Using IQ tests to

measure diverse groups of people has proven to be inaccurate due to the underlying cultural

biases IQ tests possess.

Intelligence tests have proven to be a great tool to measure one’s intelligence, however, culture

plays a big role in how diverse groups take intelligence tests. It is impossible to remove the

culture from a person but it is quite feasible to remove the culturally-based bias in intelligence

tests. Recently there has been improvement with IQ tests being labeled as “culture fair.”

However, IQ tests are being administered all over the world giving white populations the upper

hand and giving diverse populations the disadvantage. Statistically, cultural diversity is on the

rise, with instead whites being the majority, people of color will eventually be the majority. With

that being said, it is imperative that social and cultural variables are acknowledged in order to

accurately represent the diverse students in gifted programs. By seeking to reduce bias in tests,
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the barriers to education that hinder certain diverse groups can be lifted to promote a more

representative population in education.

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Works Cited

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Colom, Roberto, et al. “Human Intelligence and Brain Networks.” Dialogues in Clinical

Neuroscience, Les Laboratoires Servier, 2010,

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181994/.

Ford, Donna Y. Intelligence Testing and Cultural Diversity: Concerns, Cautions, and

Considerations. Vanderbilt University, https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED505479.pdf.

Foundation, 22 Apr. 2021, https://dana.org/article/pretending-that-intelligence-doesnt-matter/.

“IQ Tests Are Biased against Certain Groups.” Google Sites, Haverford College,

https://sites.google.com/a/haverford.edu/the-psychology-of/contact/iq-tests-are-biased-ag

ainst-certain-groups.

Gottfredson, Linda S. “Pretending That Intelligence Doesn't Matter.” Dana Foundation, Dana

Foundation, 22 Apr. 2021,

https://dana.org/article/pretending-that-intelligence-doesnt-matter/.
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Scheller, David. “Larry P. V. Riles - School Psychologist Resources.” Google Sites,

www.sites.google.com/site/schoolpsychquickreference/legal-briefs/larry-p-v-riles.

Walters, Pat. “G: The Miseducation of Larry P: Radiolab.” WNYC Studios, 7 June 2019