IQ Tests relevant?

[Vorlin]

Man, taking an IQ test would insinuate that I know how to read effectively...

After all: hucked 0n f0n1x wUrk3d 4 me

[mrcoffee12]

There are many different ways to be intelligent, some people are brilliant mathematicians but have no social skills at all and have no relationships. Some people are great with relationships but never get past algebra in math. Then of course there are the jungle tribes that were mentioned before that probably would die of a heart attack if they saw a modern city but could survive alone on an island until they died of old age. Then of course there are the ones that are more balanced and have

And I agree, tests are stupid and just a waste of time and excuse to give students more paperwork. The only people that get anywhere in life are the ones that give a damn about their future and the future of those who surround them.

[chsh]

Originally posted here by Rewandythal
No. They're not. They're totally pointless. They test too much of one kind of thing, usually they're just like maths tests. Intelligence is being able to apply what you know to new situations, not being able to work out the answer to a linear sequence of numbers in a set time.

Shows how many IQ test you've done.

They're often not all about math and similar problems. Intelligence isn't one thing, it's a combination of things. The ability to apply what you know to new situations is one such thing, but so is the ability to reapply new information to existing situations properly, being able to deal with situations well beyond normal, etc., etc..

[Juridian]

Provided by errata (I knew she'd have something for this topic)

http://www.apa.org/monitor/dec99/ss4.html

Controversy follows psychological testing

Quantifying intellectual ability has emerged as one of the field's most hotly contested areas.

The concept of intelligence has existed for centuries, but it wasn't until this century that scientists began testing it--and debating the merits of doing so.

Intelligence testing was born of the study of individual differences, developed in the late 19th century. William Stern was perhaps most influential in founding a psychology of individual differences.

In 1897, France's Alfred Binet began work on tests of individual differences, which led him to study "subnormal" children in Paris schools. Several years later, Binet and Paris physician Theodore Simon recommended that an accurate diagnosis of intelligence be established for schoolchildren. The result was the Simon-Binet test of intelligence, which first appeared in 1905 and was revised in 1908.

Binet viewed the test as a tool for selecting students who needed special remedial teaching, not as a measure of absolute innate ability. The test was translated into English for the American audience in 1908 by Henry H. Goddard and gained great popularity.

Several revisions followed, but it was the 1916 revision by Lewis M. Terman in the form we still know as the Stanford-Binet test that would standardize the test. It was William Stern who believed that the test measured innate ability or limitation. These two views lie at the basis of much of the controversy over intelligence tests across this century.

In another significant development in tests, in 1911 William Stern contributed a formulation relating mental age to chronological age with his formulation of Intelligence Quotient. This simple formulation of IQ= MA/CA X 100 gave a number to stand for the performance of the child. This allowed the IQ to be manipulated within statistical tests and to be used for prediction of later performance.

During World War I, testing of military recruits provided the first massive use of psychological tests of intelligence. Robert M. Yerkes became the head of the Psychological Testing Corps during World War I. He and Terman helped develop the Army Alpha and Beta tests, which were used to screen soldiers during the war. Hundreds of psychologists and graduate students in psychology were recruited to administer the tests to recruits. The psychological test would be heavily engrained in American psychology thereafter.

After the war, the first major wave of criticism arose concerning psychological tests. One criticism had to do with the results of the Army test pertaining to race and nationality: The results indicated that southern and eastern Europeans were inferior to northern Europeans and that blacks were inferior to whites.

Carl Brigham's 1923 book "A Study of American Intelligence" supported those negative findings and increased the criticism of all forms of intelligence testing. Some modern critics have charged that the test results prompted restrictive emigration policies in America in 1924 and fanned the flames of racial prejudice against blacks and other minorities.

J. McKeen Cattell of Columbia was a promoter of psychological tests. In 1921, he founded the Psychological Corporation as a nonprofit publisher of psychological tests. It remains a major publisher, though now in the private sector.

David Wechsler developed his tests in response to many of the criticisms of the Binet tests. In 1939, he introduced his Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), the first of a stable of tests still much in use. Since that time there have been many intelligence tests produced, some specifically aimed at reducing cultural and background effects on pencil-and-paper tests.

In 1969, the debate about the inherent versus the environmental bases of intelligence exploded with an article by Arthur Jensen in which he argued for the inheritance of racial differences in intelligence. The last decade of this century has also been caught up in a wave of contention in response to Herrnstein's and Murray's "The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life."

In recent years, influential books by R.J. Sternberg and Howard Gardner have supported multiple intelligences over a single global factor in intelligence. That debate is bound to continue.

Further reading:


Fancher, R.E. (1985). The intelligence men: makers of the IQ controversy. New York: Norton.

Minton, H.L. (1988). Lewis M. Terman: Pioneer in psychological testing. New York: New York University Press.

Sokal, M.M. (Ed.). (1987). Psychological testing and American society: 1890-1930. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Wolfe, T.H. (1973). Alfred Binet. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

[xmaddness]

http://encarta.msn.com/column/iqmain.asp

An interesting article on the subject.

[Hadoob024]

Yeah, I agree with cwk9. If you understand the thinking behind IQ test questions, you're bound to do better on them than someone that is potentially smarter, but might not have experience in answering IQ test questions. Same goes for people in Mensa. Sure, some of them might be intelligent, but I know a couple of members who are book smart, but completely clueless in the ways of this world (call them street smarts, common sense, whatever).

[gluckmac]

I maxed the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) test. No one has ever look at my score except for the Army, and that was more of an aptitude test to see whether I could learn and practice a skill. As they never let me change my job, Infantry, to something in the Information Technology arena the test was a waste of time.

A truer test of my intelligence is my work, and my ability to master the necessary skills most times from scratch. My current job is a combination of Windows NT and 2000 Systems Administrator, Access database administrator, and ColdFusion developer. I was selected because my boss felt I was intelligent enough to teach myself the required skills.

[bquine]

I think if you get a good score on an IQ test it means that you are good at IQ tests. I don't think it's a fair way of testing someones intelligence, in fact I don't beleive there is a way to accuratly guage intelligence.

To me a sign of intelligence would be to actually try and avoid an IQ test. Why would you want to be pigeon holed?

[Palemoon]

As best I can explain IQ tests are a 2D questions for a 3D world. The test is on paper 2D correct answers designed by whom? Computers are 2D with complex ways to answer one thing Yes or No or On or Off not much magic it On/Off or Yes/No only the data that is asked those questions. World is 3D you move in it has space and volume you solve and issue you must to preserve your life and act within the laws of your culture. Me I am as happy on horse back in the middle of no where as I am in the streets of Manila. How smart am I lets a IQ test writer tag along with me a year or so. 2D questions on paper cannot show how smart someone is in a 3D world at best they IQ tests are an attempt to judge a 3D world in 2D.