AP Psychology

Testing and Individual Differences

achievement testsAchievement tests, which has become the darling of modern education in the last couple of decades, measures a person’s mastery and knowledge of various subjects.

aptitude tests

Aptitude tests are designed to assess specific types of mental ability.

Before joining the military, one has to take the ASVAB or Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery to determine what field one is best suited. A similar test is conducted for government employees outside the military called the civil service examination. Both are forms of aptitude tests.

constructs

Constructs refer to nebulous and complex psychological concepts that cannot be measured and are not concrete or tangible. Examples of constructs include a person’s motivation, intelligence, anger and love.

crystallized and fluid intelligencesIn the early 1900s, psychologist Charles Spearman pointed to a general mental ability, which he labeled g, to describe this overriding, influential variable.

Decades later, Raymond Cattell (1963) and John Horn (1985) suggested that g is actually divided into fluid and crystallized intelligences. Fluid intelligence involves reasoning ability, memory capacity and speed of information processing. Crystallized intelligence involves the ability to apply acquired knowledge and skills in problem solving.

This trend towards specialization (also seen in L.L. Thurstone’s work in the 1940s) has been seen in IQ tests such as the Stanford-Binet test which, after 70 years of testing, changed its structure in 1986 to recognize individual mental abilities.

cultural-familial retardationCultural-familial retardation is a mild form of retardation that has its origins in factors related to psychosocial disadvantages (no prenatal care, poor diet or lack of intellectual engagement and opportunity).

A person who is labeled as “slow” likely suffers from this type of retardation.

culture-relevant testsCulture-relevant tests are designed to take into account specific cultural contexts.

emotional intelligenceEmotional intelligence refers to an understanding of what impacts interactions and interpersonal relationships . Such factors might include word choice, facial expressions and body language.

factor analysisFactor analysis was developed by Charles Spearman in the early 1900s, correlations among many variables were analyzed to identify closely related clusters of variables. If a collection of variables correlated highly with one another, another variable must be influencing them all.

Spearman pointed to a general mental ability, which he labeled g, to describe this prominent variable.

Flynn effectOne of the more startling pieces of evidence that environmental factors impact intelligence came from James Flynn for the U.S. military. Flynn realized that IQ scores have been going up over the generations and that this trend is also being seen in other countries as well.

Given the statistics behind these studies, that would seem to point to nurture having a greater impact on intelligence. Along with that, speculations have come fast and furious as to what might explain this phenomenon. Three major factors are thought to be at play: a widespread decrease of malnutrition; growth and advances in technology; a myriad of factors including improved schools, smaller families, better educated parents and better parenting.

group tests

Group IQ tests are designed to test a large number of people at once as seen in the Otis-Lennon School Ability Test and the Lorge/Thorndike IQ Test. Most students, if they have taken an IQ test, have taken a group one.

individualized tests

Individual IQ tests are administered by specially trained psychologists and examples include the Stanford-Binet and Wechsler tests. The major drawback is that individual testing by an individual doctor is expensive.

intelligenceThere are few words that can be as difficult to define in a psychological manner as intelligence – a capacity to act with purpose, to think rationally as well as to deal adequately with one’s environment. Charles Spearman’s factor analysis labeled g as a general factor that supported all intelligence and branded s as that which supports specialized abilities.

Controversies on the definition of intelligence can be muddled by definitions of the type of intelligence being considered, among other considerations.

multiple intelligencesFirst put forth by Howard Gardner in the early 1980s, the theory of multiple intelligences suggest that intelligence can be found on multiple levels, engaging multiple sensory processes. Gardner identified eight arenas of intelligence including:

Musical-rhythmicVisual-spatialVerbal-linguisticLogical-mathematicalBodily-kinestheticInterpersonalIntrapersonalNaturalistic

normsNorms are the rules defining appropriate and inappropriate behavior.

In the United States, the shaking of hands is appropriate as a form of greeting (a norm) while the slapping of a child for corrective purposes in public, while previously accepted, is no longer considered appropriate.

performance, speed and power tests

A performance test is one in which the test taker knows how to answer the questions found within. An example of such a test would be the upcoming AP Psychology test.

A speed test is one in which how quickly a person answers question is measured. Typically, these type of tests have more questions than can be reasonably completed. Some hiring tests are examples.

A power test is a calculation of how many people a scientist must consider when creating a sample for their study. The correct minimal amount gives the test power and validity.

psychometriciansA psychometrician is a psychologist whose focus is in measurement, as seen in intelligence tests, aptitudes as well as other formats. These type of tests are most seen in schools, prisons and the military.

reificationA form of top-down processing found in Gestalt principles, reification refers to the tendency of people to see the whole before considering the parts.

For example, if one is home shopping, they may be drawn or repelled first by the home in its entirety. Afterwards, the individual features of the home (bathrooms, kitchens, yard or no yard) are considered and measured.

reliability and validityTests, in the psychological vernacular, are assessments designed to list and/or measure individual traits within a particular point in time. In order for tests to be considered significant, the tests require a certain level of reliability (consistency) and validity (does what it was designed to do).

standardizationStandardization refers to the uniformity of tests and the environment in which they are taken in order to better compare one result with others.

Stanford-Binet intelligence testIn France, attempts were made to identify children with mental issues so that they may get specialized help. Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon created a test measuring abstract reasoning skills. The test was so successful, it spread throughout the western world. As a part of the test, one’s mental age was measured. Mental age indicates that a child displays the mental ability of a typical child of their age. Lewis Terman and his colleagues at Stanford University revised Binet’s test, keeping a strong link to the original but in doing so, created a new measure. The intelligence quotient (IQ) factors a child’s mental age divided by chronological age, multiplied by 100. This creats a baseline (100) that all children, no matter age or mental capacity, can be measured against. The Stanford-Binet became the most widely used IQ test and remains so today.

stereotype threat

There has been much debate on how intelligence tests can apply across cultures and other factors. Claude Steele of Stanford University has suggested that stereotype threat or vulnerability keeps certain groups down and renders them not capable of reaching their full intellectual potential. Failure by a minority, or a woman, can be seen by the observer who holds the stereotype as further proof that failure is due to genetics.

Thurstone’s primary mental abilities

In the 1940s, L.L. Thurstone did away with g or Binet’s general mental ability altogether by stating that there are seven distinct primary mental abilities.

Word fluencyVerbal comprehensionSpatial abilityPerceptual speedNumerical abilityInductive reasoningMemory

triarchic theory of intelligence

From a cognitive viewpoint, it is not about how much intelligence one has but how they use what they have. Robert Sternberg has put forth a triarchic theory of human intelligence with three parts:

Contextual subtheory – intelligence is a culturally defined concept.

Experimental subtheory – the focus is on an ability to handle the new effectively and dealing with the familiar with automatic and effortless ease.

Componential subtheory – describes the specific types of mental processes that intelligence depends upon.

Wechsler intelligence testsThe chief psychologist at New York’s Bellevue Hospital, David Wechsler, created a test to measure his adult patients known as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. He made two major changes to the Stanford-Binet test.

One, he de-emphasized the verbal ability and in doing so, created multiple scales of intelligence, including verbal IQ, performance (non-verbal) IQ and full-scale (total) IQ. Two, he abolished the quotient aspect of the final numbers, basing his new scale on what he called normal distribution.