Psychological Assessment
Intelligence
Source: Cohen & Swerdlik (2018), Kaplan & Saccuzzo (2018)
Intelligence
o Intelligence – multifaceted capacity that
manifests itself in different ways across the life
span
o Includes the abilities to:
✓ Acquire and apply knowledge
✓ Logical reasoning
✓ Planning
✓ Inferences
✓ Sound Judgments and problem solving
✓ Grasp and visualize concepts
✓ Attentions
✓ Intuition
✓ Finding the right words and thoughts with
facility
✓ Cope with, adjust to, and make the most of
new situations
o Young children may define intelligence in terms
that emphasize positive interpersonal skills
o Older children are more emphasized with their
academic skills
o Galton: most intelligent persons are those who
are equipped with the best sensory abilities
o Weschler: there is an explicit reference to an
aggregate or global capacity
o Piaget: intelligence may be conceived of as a kind
of evolving biological adaptation
o Binet: Intelligence as the capacity to find and
maintain a definite direction or purpose, to make
necessary adaptations, and to engage in self-
criticism so that necessary first step in
developing a measure of intelligence
▪ Age Differentiation – refers to the simple fact
that one can differentiate older children from
younger children
▪ General Mental Ability – total product of the
various separate and distinct elements of
intelligence
o Interactionism – refers to the complex concept
by which heredity and environment are
presumed to interact and influence the
development of intelligence
o Thurstone: Primary Mental Abilities, developed
Primary Mental Abilities Test
o Factory-Analytic Theories – focus on identifying
the ability or groups of abilities deemed to
constitute intelligence
o Information-Processing Theories – identifying
specific mental processes that constitute
intelligence
Factor Analytic Theories
o Factor Analysis – group of statistical techniques
designed to determine the existence of
underlying relationships between sets of
variables
o Charles Spearman – found that measures of
intelligence tended to correlate to various
degrees with each other
▪ Two-Factor Theory of Intelligence –
intelligence have two components: (g)
general intelligence and (s) specific
intelligence
▪ Tests that exhibited high positive correlation
with other intelligence tests were thought to
be highly saturated with g, whereas test with
low or moderate correlations with other
intelligence tests were viewed as possible
measures of specific factors
▪ The greater the magnitude of g in a test of
intelligence, the better the test was thought to
predict overall intelligence
▪ G Factor – linked to general ability
▪ S Factor – linked to specific ability
▪ Group Factors – neither as general as g nor
as specific as s
o Guilford – sought to explain mental activities by
deemphasizing, if not eliminating, any reference
to g
o Thurstone – conceived of intelligence as being
composed of seven “primary abilities”
▪ verbal comprehension, word fluency,
number facility, spatial visualization,
associative memory, perceptual speed, and
reasoning
o Gardner – developed a theory of multiple
intelligences: logical-mathematical, bodily-
kinesthetic, linguistic, musical, spatial,
interpersonal, and intrapersonal
▪ Interpersonal Intelligence – ability to
understand other people
▪ Intrapersonal – capacity to form an accurate,
veridical model of oneself and to be able to
use that model to operate effectively in life
▪ Emotional Intelligence – Interpersonal and
Intrapersonal Intelligence
o Raymond B. Cattell – postulated Crystallized and
Fluid Intelligence
▪ Crystallized – acquired skills and knowledge
that are dependent on exposure to a

Source: Cohen & Swerdlik (2018), Kaplan & Saccuzzo (2018)
particular culture as well as on formal and
informal education
▪ Fluid – nonverbal, relatively culture-free, and
independent of specific instruction
o Horn – added Visual Processing, Auditory
Processing, Quantitative Processing, Speed of
Processing, facility with reading, and writing,
short-term memory, and long-term memory
storage and retrieval
▪ Vulnerable Abilities – decline with age and
tend not to return to preinjury levels
following brain damage
▪ Maintained Abilities – tend not to decline with
age and may return to preinjury levels
following brain damage
o Three-Stratum Theory of Cognitive Abilities
▪ Top stratum level is general intelligence (g)
▪ The second stratum is composed of eight
abilities: fluid intelligence, crystallized
intelligence, general memory and learning,
broad visual perception, broad auditory
perception, broad retrieval capacity, broad
cognitive speediness, and
processing/decision speed
▪ Hierarchical Model
o Cattell-Horn-Carroll Model of Cognitive
Abilities – a psychometric taxonomy designed to
explain how and why individuals differ in
cognitive ability. It provides a common frame of
reference and nomenclature to organize
cognitive ability research
o E.L Thorndike – intelligence can be conceived in
terms of three clusters of ability: social
intelligence, concrete intelligence, and abstract
intelligence
▪ Also incorporated a general mental ability
factor into the theory
▪ One’s ability to learn is determined by the
number and speed of the bonds that can be
marshaled
Information-Processing View
Psychological Assessment
Intelligence
o Aleksandr Luria – two basic types of
information-processing styles, simultaneous
and successive, have been distinguished
▪ Simultaneous (Parallel) – information is
integrated all at one time
▪ Successive (Sequential) – each bit of
information is individually processed in
sequences
o PASS model – Planning, Attention,
Simultaneous, and Successive
▪ Planning – refers to strategy development for
problem solving
▪ Attention – refers to receptivity to
information
Measuring Intelligence
Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales: Fifth Edition
(SB5)
o Lewis Terman published an English translation
of the first Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale,
which stimulated a worldwide appetite for
intelligence tests
o The first version was the first published
intelligence test that provide detailed
administration and scoring
o 1908: Introduced the concept of age scale and
mental age
o It was also the first test to employ the concept of
IQ and the first test to introduce the concept of
Alternate Item (item to be substituted for regular
item under specified conditions)
o 1916: Intelligence Quotient (recommended by
Stern) – subject’s mental age in conjunction with
his or her chronological age
o Also employed the concept of Mental Age (the
age level at which an individual appears to be
functioning intellectually as indicated by the
level of items responded correctly)
▪ Ratio IQ: ratio of the testtaker’s mental age
over his chronological age, multiplied to 100
o 1926: Terman revised the test with Maud Merrill
which included the development of two
equivalent forms labeled (L) and (M), as well as
new types of tasks for use with pre-school level
and adult-level testtakers
o 1956 (Terman’s Death): SB was again revised
with only a single form (L-M) and it included the
items considered to be the best from the two
forms
▪ Deviation IQ instead of ratio IQ tables
 Psychological Assessment
Intelligence
Source: Cohen & Swerdlik (2018), Kaplan & Saccuzzo (2018)
▪ Deviation IQ – reflects a comparison of the
performance with the performance of others
of the same age
o 4th edition introduced Point Scale (a test
organized into subtests by category of item, not
by age at which most testtakers are presumed
capable of responding in the way that is keyed as
correct
o Fifth Edition was designed for administration to
assess as young as 2 and as old as 85
▪ Based on the Cattell-Horn-Carrol theory
▪ Fluid Intelligence, Crystallized Intelligence,
Quantitative Knowledge, Visual processing,
Short-Term Memory
o Routing Test – a task used to direct or route the
Wechsler Tests
examinee to a particular level of questions to
o 1939: Wechsler-Bellevue 1 (W-B 1) was published
direct an examinee to test items that have a high
o Point scale rather than age scale
probability of being at an optimal level of
o Arranged in order of increasing difficulty
difficulty
o 1942: W-B 2 was created but never thoroughly
o Teaching Items – designed to illustrate the task
standardized
required and assure the examiner that the
o Standardization was restricted
examinee understands
o Some subtest lacked of inter-item reliability
o Basal Age – the highest year level at which the
o Some of the subtests were made up of easy
subject successfully passes all tests
items
o SB5 items are not timed to accommodate
o Scoring criteria for some items were too
testtakers with special needs and to fit them with
ambiguous
IRT model used to calibrate the difficulty of items
o 1955: Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)
o Exemplary for Adaptive Testing (testing
was published
individually)
▪ Yielded a verbal IQ, performance IQ, and a full
▪ Ensures that early test or subtest items are
scale IQ
not so difficult as to frustrate the testtaker
o 1981: WAIS-R
and not so easy as to lull the testtaker into a
o WAIS IV – the current Wechsler Adult Scale
false sense of security or a state of mind
▪ Made up of : Core and Supplemental Subtest
▪ Allows the test user to collect the maximum
▪ Core Subtests – administered to obtain
amount of information in minimum amount of
composite score
time
▪ Supplemental Subtest – for providing
▪ Facilitates rapport
additional clinical information or extending
▪ Minimizes potential for examinee fatigue
the number of abilities or processed
from being administered too many times
sampled
o Extra-test Behavior – the way examinee copes
▪ Core Subtests: Block design, similarities,
with frustration, reaction to stimulus, amount of
digit span, matrix reasoning, vocabulary,
support, etc. are observed
arithmetic, symbol search, visual puzzles,
information, and coding
▪ Supplemental Subtests: Letter-Number
Sequencing, Figure Weights,
Comprehension, Cancellation, and Picture
Completion
▪ more explicit administration instructions as
well as the expanded use of demonstration
and sample items

Source: Cohen & Swerdlik (2018), Kaplan & Saccuzzo (2018)
▪ Practice Items (teaching items) are
presumed to pay dividends in terms of
ensuring that low scores are actually due to
a deficit of some sort and not simply to a
misunderstanding of directions
Short Forms of Intelligence Tests
o Short Form – a test that has been abbreviated in
length to reduce time needed for administration,
scoring and interpretation
o David Wechsler endorsed the used of short
forms for screening purposes (not to make
placement or educational decisions)
o Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence –
designed to answer the need for a short
instrument to screen intellectual ability of
testtakers from 6 to 89 yrs of age
o 2011: WASI-2
Group Test of Intelligence
o Robert Yerkes lead the development of Army
Alpha and Army Beta to measure the ability to be
a good soldier during WWI
o WWII led to development of Army General
Classification Test
o School Ability Test – group intelligence Test
▪ Alert educators to students who might profit
function of data from more extensive
assessment with individually administered
ability tests
o Four terms common to many measures of
creativity:
a. Originality – the ability to produce something
that is innovative or nonobvious
b. Fluency – ease with which responses are
reproduced and is usually measured by the
total number of responses produced
c. Flexibility – variety of ideas presented and the
ability to shirt from one approach to another
d. Elaboration – richness of detail in a verbal
explanation or pictorial display
o Convergent Thinking – deductive reasoning
process that entails recall and consideration of
facts as well as a series of logical judgments to
narrow down solutions and eventually arrive at
one solution
o Divergent Thinking – free to move in many
different directions, making several solutions
possible
Issues in the Assessment of Intelligence
o Binet-Simon test was designed to separate
“natural intelligence from instruction” by
Psychological Assessment
Intelligence
“disregarding, insofar as possible, the degree of
instruction which the subject possesses
o Culture-Free Intelligence Test – cultural factors
can be controlled then differences between
cultural groups will be lessened
o Elimination of verbal items and the exclusive
reliance on nonverbal, performance items can
control the effect of culture
o Nonverbal items were thought to represent the
best available means for determining the
cognitive ability of minority group
o Culture-Loading – the extent to which a test
incorporates the vocabulary, concepts,
traditions, knowledge, and feelings associated
with a particular culture
o Culture-Fair Intelligence Test – a test or
assessment process designed to minimize the
influence of culture, with regard to various
aspects of the evaluation procedures
▪ Include only those tasks that seemed to
reflect experiences, knowledge, and skills
common to all different cultures
▪ Lack the hallmark of traditional tests of
intelligence: predictive validity
o Flynn Effect – progressive rise in the IQ scores
that is expected to occur on a normed
intelligence from the date when the test was first
normed
▪ More on fluid intelligence
end