DIFFERENT ABILITIES

ASSOCIATED WITH
INTELLIGENCE TEST

Cristine Lae C. Erasga

 INTRODUCTION
• In the late 1800’s, Sir Francis Galton developed the first broad test of intelligence
(Flanagan & Kaufman, 2004). *although he was not a psychologist, his contributions to the concepts
of intelligence testing are still felt today (Gordon, 1995).

• Intelligence Quotient (IQ) -  is a total score derived from a set of standardized tests or
subtests designed to assess human intelligence.

- was coined by the psychologist William Stern for the German term Intelligenzquotient,

his term for a scoring method for intelligence tests at University of Breslau he
advocated in a 1912 book.

• Historically, IQ was a score obtained by dividing * IQ=MA/CA * 100, where

a person's mental age score, obtained by “MA” is your mental age

administering an intelligence test, by the person’s and “CA” is your

chronological age.
• Flynn Effect - raw scores on IQ tests for many populations have been rising at an average
rate that scales to three IQ points per decade since the early 20th century. * increases in subtest
scores on human intelligence

• Binet-Simon Test - focused on verbal abilities / intended to identify mental retardation in

school children / score would reveal the child’s mental age * (Alfred Binet, Theodore Simon & Victor
Henri)

• Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales – psychologist Lewis Terman at Stanford University

revised the Binet-Simon scale / most popular test in the U.S. for decades. * adolescents & adults

• Charles Spearman (1904 ) - British psychologist, made the first formal factor analysis of
correlations between the tests / he named it (g) for general factor and (s) for specific factors
or abilities for specific tasks.
• Colonel Robert Yerkes – in U.S. during World War I, the Army needed a way to evaluate
and assign recruits to appropriate tasks / developed the Army Alpha Test and Beta Test as a
way of selecting recruits to examine the early history of intelligence testing * 1.75 million men
were tested in total, making the results the first mass-produced written tests of intelligence

• Louis Leon Thurstone - argued for a model of intelligence that included seven unrelated
factors (verbal comprehension, word fluency, number facility, spatial visualization,
associative memory, perceptual speed, reasoning, and induction)

• Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) - IQ test designed to measure intelligence and
cognitive ability in adults and older adolescents / continues to be the most popular test in the
United States.
 SOME ISSUES RELATED TO THE IQ TESTING
• DISCRIMINATION - against minority groups and disabled individuals.

Example: Black Intelligence Test of Cultural Homogeneity (BITCH-100 or The BITCH Test), is
an intelligence test created by Robert Williams in 1972 oriented toward the language, attitudes,
and life-styles of African Americans.

• VALIDITY - the extent to which a test measures what it claims to measure. It is vital for a
test to be valid in order for the results to be accurately applied and interpreted . *stable personality
trait but instead, it measures transitory emotions

- not all experts agree on a standard definition of intelligence, so not all IQ

tests measure the same things.

• RELIABILITY - represents the measurement consistency of a test / produces similar scores

upon repetition.
 FACTORS THAT CAN INFLUENCE IQ & SCORES

• EDUCATIONAL ACCESS AND BACKGROUND - Researchers have found that an extra

year of schooling leads to a small but noticeable increase in intelligence scores.

- The study provides the strongest evidence yet that education raises intelligence test scores.
(Dr. Stuart Ritchie, 2014)

• NUTRITION - There is evidence that providing a high nutrient diet to very premature
babies, particularly males, can help to reduce the loss of brain size and IQ often experienced
by these babies. Zinc, Iron, folate, iodine, B12 and protein deficiency can also result in low
IQ. Arun Oommen (2014)
 FACTORS CAN INFLUENCE IQ & SCORES

• CULTURE - intelligence tests measure what the individual has learned (Kaufman, 1990).

- the content of all tasks, whether verbal or non-verbal, is learned within a

culture (Miller, 1996).

- therefore, all tests are culturally-loaded (Kaufman, 1990)

• ENVIRONMENT - Researchers often study twins who’ve been separated at birth to

understand further the roles nature and nurture play in human intelligence. They theorize that
if intelligence is purely biological, identical twins separated at birth should still have equal
IQs. Recent studies have shown that training in using one’s working memory may increase
IQ.
 FACTORS CAN INFLUENCE IQ & SCORES

 NATURE & NURTURE work together in determining human intelligence. Even though the
genetic susceptibility plays a crucial role on the IQ of the individual, various modifiable
environmental factors like education, premature birth, nutrition, pollution, drug and alcohol
abuse, mental illnesses, and diseases can have an influence on an individual’s IQ.
 REFERENCES:

Oommen, A. (2014). Factors Influencing Intelligence Quotient. Retrieved from

https://medcraveonline.com

https://www.cdc.gov/eeo/faqs/discrimination.htm