What is intelligence?
o
You are set up on a blind date with someone you
are told has in I.Q. of 140 (in the top 2.5% of the population).
o
What do you think about this person?
Origins of the I.Q. Test
o
French government at around 1900 became
concerned with developing public education
o
Not wanting to waste their money on non
deserving children they asked Alfred Binet to design a test that would pick the
children who where intellectually the best
1904: Binet designed the Intelligence or
I.Q. test
§
Intelligence Test
§
a method of
assessing an individual’s mental aptitudes and comparing them to those of
others, using numerical scores
How did Binet go about designing an
intelligence test?
o
He came up with questions he thought could be
answered by children at different ages
n
Two year olds:
can they stack blocks, can they point to a dog, etc.?
n
Six year olds: can they solve a simple puzzle,
do they know what “gigantic” means?
n
Fourteen year olds: do they know what
“prodigious” means, do they know what insulations does on a wire?
How did Binet go about designing an
intelligence test?
o
Binet empirically tested questions until he
found items that could typically be answered by children of different ages
n
E.g.: Four year old questions
n
Five year old questions
n
Six year old questions, etc.
Scoring the Binet Intelligence Test: Assume
a 6 year old is given the test
o
He answers all
the questions meant for six year olds– how much “mental age” do we give him?
n
6 years
o
He also answers
50% of the questions meant for seven year olds– how much “mental age do we give
him?
n
Another 6 months
o
He answers 25% of
the eight year old questions
n
Add another 3
months
o
He can’t answer
any of the nine year old questions
What’s his Mental Age?
o
6 years
(six year old questions)
o
Plus 6 months (seven year old questions)
o
Plus 3 months (eight year old questions)
o
Total = 6 year and 9 months or
n
6.75 years
o
Thus, his mental age is greater than his
physical or chronological age
Binet’s Formula: Intelligence Quotient
I.Q.
o
If someone’s mental age is identical to their
chronological, what is their I.Q. ?
o
100
o
If someone’s mental age is less then their
chronological age, what is their I.Q. ?
o
Less than 100
o
What is the mean or average I.Q.
o
By definition =
100
Important Insight
o
Binet’s questions were not developed based on
any “theory” of children’s knowledge
o
Binet made no assumptions about what why a child
was slow, average, or precocious
o
He was only concerned with developing an
empirical test that could be used to separate or measure the children
Current Intelligence Tests
o
Since Binet, the
test was translated into English and adapted for the U.S.
by Lewis Terman of Stanford
University
n
Terman didn’t
think many of the questions fit American norms
o
Terman extended
the test to adults and “superior adults”– he came up with questions on few
adults could answer
o
Now known as the
Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test or Quotient
Wechsler Tests
o
David Wechsler developed a similar set of tests
known as the
n
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)
n
Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC)
o
Wechsler Tests are now the most popular that are
administered individually
o
In addition to the total score, it has both a
“verbal” and “performance” (non-verbal) score
Standard Deviation of I.Q. test is 15
Intelligence (aptitude) vs. Achievement
o
Intelligence or aptitude tests are meant to
predict your general ability to learn new skills
o
Achievement tests are meant to reflect what you
have learned—for example, from school
o
What are SAT’s ?
What are each of these– intelligence or
achievement?
Are intelligence tests accurate or useful?
o
ALL tests are assessed by whether they are
o
Reliable
o
and
o
Valid
Assessing Intelligence
§
Reliability
§
the extent to which a test yields consistent
results
§
assessed by consistency of scores on:
§
two halves of the test
§
alternate forms of the test
§
retesting
§
Validity
§
the extent to which a test measures or predicts
what it is supposed to
Assessing Intelligence
§
Predictive Validity
§
success with which a test predicts the behavior
it is designed to predict
§
assessed by computing the correlation between
test scores and the criterion behavior
§
also called criterion-related validity
What do intelligence tests predict?
o
Success in life, e.g., jobs, money or power?
o
Happiness, e.g., success in relationships?
o
School success?
o
Correlation between I.Q. and grades is about +.
60
Why the limited validity?
o
Perhaps there is not a single, overall type of
intelligence.
o
Rather, maybe intelligence consists of different
types of abilities
The Nature of Intelligence
Gardner's Frames of Mind
o
Multiple Intelligences
n
Gardner’s theory that there are seven types
of intelligence:
o
Linguistic intelligence
o
Logical - mathematical intelligence
o
Spatial intelligence
o
Musical intelligence
o
Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence
o
Interpersonal intelligence
o
Intrapersonal intelligence
The Nature of Intelligence
Sternberg's Triarchic Theory
o
Triarchic Theory of Intelligence
n
Sternberg’s theory that there are three kinds
of intelligence: analytic, creative, and practical.
o
Analytic -
“Components”
n
Comparing, analyzing, and evaluating
n
This type of process correlates best with IQ
o
Creative -
“Experiential”
n
Inventing or designing solutions to new problems
o
Practical -
“Contextual”
n
Adapting to the contexts of everyday life
The Nature of Intelligence
Sternberg's Triarchic Theory