Testing common sense.

Predictors of success in school, such as conventional psychometric intelligence (e.g., IQ) tests, are less predictive of success out of school. Even the most charitable estimates of the relation between intelligence test scores and real-world criteria such as job performance indicate that approximately three fourths of the variance in real-world performance is not accounted for by intelligence test performance. Researchers have begun to explore new constructs in search of measures to supplement existing cognitive ability tests as predictors of real-world performance. Among the most promising constructs is practical intelligence, or common sense. Performance on measures of practical intelligence predicts real-world criteria such as job performance but is relatively unrelated to performance on intelligence tests and other common selection measures. Consequently, its contribution to prediction is largely independent of the contributions of existing measures, including measures of cognitive ability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Current trends in psychological testing of children.

The purpose of this article is twofold: (a) to summarize research on test use practices among child clinicians and (b) to identify some major trends that are likely to affect psychological assessment practices with children in the near future. Although child psychological assessment practices and choice of tests have remained relatively stable over the past decade or 2, some noteworthy changes have occurred. Child clinicians use a more diverse array of instruments, and behavior rating scales have supplanted the use of projective tests. Three trends that currently, and will continue to, affect child assessment practice are the preeminence of school as the assessment site for children, the growth of abbreviated measures of intelligence, and the extraordinary popularity of the behavior rating scale technology. Professional psychologists are advised to attend to the implications of these trends to ensure that they are continuing to provide needed and valued psychological assessment services. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Utility of intelligence tests for treatment planning, classification, and placement decisions: Recent empirical findings and future directions.

Intelligence testing in schools continues to be a frequent behavior among many school psychologists that creates a lucrative market for test publishers. Each year, between 1.5 and 1.8 million intelligence tests are administered by school psychologists. The typical school psychologist spends approximately two-thirds of his or her time in special education eligibility determination. This article maintains that intelligence tests contribute little if any information useful for the planning, implementation, and evaluation of instructional interventions for children. This argument is supported by the virtual absence of empirical evidence supporting the existence of aptitude?×?treatment interactions. We also suggest that intelligence tests are not particularly useful in making differential diagnostic and classification determinations for children with mild learning problems. Further, school study teams often ignore results of intelligence testing in making classification and placement decisions. We argue that intelligence testing is not a cost-beneficial use of school psychologists' time and should be replaced with assessment procedures directly related to the design, implementation, and evaluation of instructional interventions for children and youth. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intelligence, schooling, and society.

IQ test scores are measures of g, or general intelligence, the common element present in diverse tests of cognitive abilities that are positively related to each other. IQ scores are related to the acquisition of knowledge in school and occupational settings. IQ test scores also relate to the academic achievements of one's children. In many contexts, the relationship between IQ and various outcomes is not attributable to the relationship between IQ and social class background. IQ is an index that distinguishes among individuals with common social and demographic backgrounds. The relationship between IQ and various outcome measures may be reduced by relying on multivariable selection procedures, by modifying educational and occupational practices, and by interventions designed to increase IQ. Representative studies that provide evidence for these assertions are considered. Although the influence of the ability indexed by IQ may be reduced, it probably cannot be eliminated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lost: Our intelligence? Why?

The "concept of general intelligence, despite being maligned by a few, regarded as a 2nd-order function by some, and discarded or ignored by others, still has a rightful place in the science of psychology and in the practical affairs of man." "It is far from clear that tests of general intelligence have been outmoded by the multi-test batteries as the more useful predictors of school achievement." In fact some evidence suggests that "better predictions are possible via old-fashioned general intelligence tests." Discussion focuses on reasons for discarding the idea of general intelligence, factor theories of intelligence, and recent trends in the assessment of "general intelligence." "By the criterion of social usefulness, the multiple aptitude batteries have been found wanting." It is "time for the profession to establish a bureau of standards to test the tests." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intellectual Differences Between Suburban Preschizophrenic Children and Their Siblings.

The intelligence test scores of 56 suburban school children who later became schizophrenic adults were found to be significantly lower than the intelligence test scores of their siblings on tests taken at the same ages. Early intellectual deficit of future schizophrenics which is not easily discernible in suburban children, whose intelligence test scores often are above average but near the average of their own schools, shows up in comparisons with the performance of their own siblings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The person who out performs me is a genius: Maintaining perceived competence in upward social comparison.

People have many ways of protecting themselves against unfavorable social comparisons. Sometimes, however, the unfavorableness of a comparison is too unambiguous to deny. In such circumstances, people may indirectly protect their self-images by exaggerating the ability of those who outperform them. Aggrandizing the outperformer is conceived to be a construal mechanism that permits inferior performers to deflect the self-esteem threat of being outperformed while maintaining believability. The tendency to exaggerate an outperformer's ability was demonstrated in a context in which subjects learned they had been outperformed by a confederate on a perceptual intelligence test. Subjects' and observers' ratings of the confederate's intelligence showed that subjects consistently rated the confederate more favorably than did observers. Using a similar methodology in which subjects outperformed confederates, another study showed that subjects exaggerated the ability of the people they outperformed. The conditions in which these effects are most likely to be obtained are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Educational uses of tests with disadvantaged students.

Presents a report, written in response to a manifesto by the Black Psychological Association asking for a moratorium on the use of psychological tests with students from disadvantaged backgrounds, which attempts to clarify the nature of psychometric tests, their uses, and their abuses, and propose some alternatives for standardized assessments. Possible causes for Blacks' lower performances on verbal and nonverbal intelligence tests are considered in relation to social attitudes. It is noted that test use makes no causal assumptions about the effects of heredity or environment. Other topics in the report include (a) a comprehensive definition of abilities, particularly general intelligence; (b) some common classes of misuse and misinterpretation; (c) an account of the kinds of statistical information needed to use a test effectively; and (d) a discussion of existing alternatives to ability tests. The need for more diagnostic and mastery tests, tests which measure important qualities other than intelligence, more regression comparisons and normative data, and more adequate studies of moderator variables is examined. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Testing for competence rather than for "intelligence."

Argues that while traditional intelligence tests have been validated almost entirely against school performance, the evidence that they measure abilities which are essential to performing well in various life outcomes is weak. Most of the validity studies are correlational in nature and fail to control for the fact that social class might be a 3rd variable accounting for positive correlations between test scores and occupational success, and between level of schooling achieved and occupational success. It is suggested that better measures of competence might be derived by analysis of successful life outcomes and the competencies involved in them, criterion sampling, and assessment of communication skills. (41 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lower precombat intelligence is a risk factor for posttraumatic stress disorder.

The authors examined the relation between intelligence and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by studying the association among precombat intelligence, current intelligence, and self-reported PTSD symptoms. Military aptitude test results were obtained in 59 PTSD and 31 non-PTSD Vietnam combat veterans who had undergone a psychodiagnostic interview and current intelligence testing. People with lower precombat intelligence were more likely to develop PTSD symptoms as assessed by the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale even after adjustment for extent of combat exposure. The association between current intelligence and PTSD was no longer significant after adjusting for precombat intelligence. These results suggest that lower pretrauma intelligence increases risk for developing PTSD symptoms, not that PTSD lowers performance on intelligence tests. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predicting school achievement from data on pupils obtained from teachers: Towards a screening device for disadvantage.

Home background, cognitive, and emotional characteristics of 220 5-yr-old disadvantaged Irish children were measured with a questionnaire sent to teachers shortly after Ss entered school. These characteristics were then related to scores on standardized tests of mathematics, English, and intelligence administered after 3 yrs of school. MANOVAs indicated that performance at 8 yrs of age could be predicted with considerable accuracy by a combination of teachers' ratings of Ss' home and personal characteristics at 5 yrs of age. Teachers' ratings of Ss' personal characteristics were better predictors of performance than were their ratings of home background or status. Performances on the English and intelligence tests were better predicted than performance on the mathematics test. The construction of a pilot screening device based on the predictor variables used in the present study is advocated. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Validity, vaudeville, and values: A short history of social concerns over standardized testing.

Traces the debates over the meaning of intelligence, the social functions that tests serve, and the appropriate use of personality tests. Recent interest in the IQ controversy, minimum competency testing, test disclosure, test bias, and the "truth-in-testing" movement are discussed. The author observes that social concerns over testing reflect its success as a social enterprise and matters of social and political philosophy as much as scientific measurement. It is noted that such matters affect not only broad social concerns, but also issues that are often seen as mainly technical or theoretical. To illustrate this point, examples are cited concerning construct validity, utility of test information, and group parity models of fair selection. (62 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Survey of expert opinion on intelligence and aptitude testing.

Psychologists and educational specialists with expertise in areas related to intelligence testing responded to a questionnaire dealing with a wide variety of issues constituting the IQ controversy. Overall, experts hold positive attitudes about the validity and usefulness of intelligence and aptitude tests. Tests are seen as adequately measuring most important elements of intelligence, although the tests are believed to be somewhat racially and socioeconomically biased. There is overwhelming support for a significant within-group heritability for IQ, and a majority of respondents feel that black-white and socioeconomic status IQ differences are also partially hereditary. Problems with intelligence tests are perceived in the influence of nonintellectual characteristics on test performance and in the frequent misinterpretation and overreliance on test scores in elementary and secondary schools. Despite these difficulties, experts favor the continued use of intelligence and aptitude tests at their present level. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A comparison of predictors of success on NCLEX-RN for African American, foreign-born, and white baccalaureate graduates

Research into the biological bases of human intelligence differences is surveyed. Work on brain event-related potentials (ERPs) suggests that people with high IQ test scores: (1) show faster responses in some test conditions; (2) have ERP waveforms that can be distinguished from those of people with lower IQs; and (3) might have less variability in their ERPs. People with higher psychometric intelligence have, on average, larger brains, and possibly faster neural conduction speed. A few small functional brain-scanning studies suggest that, in healthy individuals, people who are of higher IQ have lower cerebral metabolic rates during mentally active conditions. This has led to the speculation that brighter people have more efficient brains. Despite some well-replicated findings in the search for the 'biology of human intelligence' there is a dearth of explanatory accounts to link cognitive performance differences with variance in brain mechanisms.     

Need for safeguarding the field of intelligence testing.

This reprinted article originally appeared in the Journal of Educational Psychology, 1944, Vol 35, 240–247. The following abstract of the original article appeared in PA, Vol 18:3903. Vast expansion in the publication and use of intelligence tests in recent years has brought it about that tests are often given by incompetent testers and interpreted without insight. Moreover, unwise use is often ignorantly made of test results. There is need for legislation which will provide 2 safeguards: (1) control of promiscuous distribution of tests by their publishers and (2) licensing requirements for persons who administer intelligence tests. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Normal intelligence with severe insulin-like growth factor I deficiency due to growth hormone receptor deficiency: a controlled study in a genetically homogeneous population

Superior school performance was reported for 52 Ecuadorian probands with severe deficiency of insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) due to GH receptor deficiency (GHRD) resulting from homozygosity for the E180 splice mutation of the GHR. In contrast, subnormal intelligence was reported in a study of 18 genetically heterogeneous Israeli patients, attributed to frequent hypoglycemia or IGF-I dependence of brain development. This study is the first controlled evaluation of the intellectual ability of patients with GHRD. We compared the intelligence of 18 patients of school age (mean +/- SD age, 11.5 +/- 2.8 yr), 42 of their relatives (11.5 +/- 2.8 yr), and 28 community controls (10.0 +/- 0.8 yr), using a battery of intelligence tests that have been validated in cross-cultural research, designed to minimize the effects of physical size, motor coordination, and cultural background. Because all patients had the same GHR mutation, for which the carrier state could be determined, this study also investigated whether heterozygosity for mutation of the GHR among unaffected relatives is associated with intelligence. The intellectual ability of the patients with GHRD was not significantly different from that of their relatives (P > 0.05) on the psychometric tests of intelligence and was comparable to that of the community controls on the chronometric tests. Homozygosity or heterozygosity for the mutation in the GHR gene common to Ecuadorian patients was unrelated to intelligence (P > 0.05). These results indicate that the gene defect causing GHRD is not related to intelligence in the Ecuadorian population. They also indicate that GH-induced IGF-I production is not required for normal brain growth in utero or for postnatal intellectual development.     

Breastfeeding, dummy use, and adult intelligence

BACKGROUND: Several studies show that children who were breastfed as babies gain higher scores on intelligence tests than those who were bottlefed. Although these findings suggest that breastfeeding in early life may promote cognitive development, their interpretation is complicated by the current association between breastfeeding and higher social class. We investigated the relation between method of feeding in infancy and adult intelligence in a setting where breastfeeding was not linked with socioeconomic advantage. METHODS: We followed up 994 men and women, born between 1920 and 1930 in Hertfordshire, UK, for whom information on infant feeding had been recorded by health visitors. Intelligence was measured by the AH4 IQ test, taken on a computer. Factors significantly linked with IQ were investigated by multivariate analysis. FINDINGS: Study participants who had been exclusively breastfed gained slightly higher scores on the IQ test than those who had been exclusively bottlefed, or fed with both breast and bottle. IQ was lower in participants who had used a dummy (pacifier) in infancy, in those whose fathers were in manual occupations at the time of their birth, and in those whose mothers were young at the time they were born. Scores on the IQ test fell as the number of older siblings increased. In multivariate analysis, after adjustment for the effect of all other variables, no association was found between adult intelligence and method of feeding. Dummy use in infancy, number of older siblings, maternal age at birth of the participant, and father's occupational class remained independent predictors of adult intelligence. INTERPRETATION: The mechanisms that link type of feeding in early life with later intelligence may have more to do with the child's social environment that with the nutritional qualities of the milk.     

Achievement striving, social class, and test anxiety.

It was hypothesized that compared to working-class Ss, middle-class Ss would show little improvement in test performance under financial incentive. Tests used were a simple motor test and an intelligence test. Ss were high school juniors and seniors. Results with both tests support the hypothesis that middle-class test performance is more highly generalized and less subject to improvement through increased striving for material reward. "The main difference between the two groups seems to be that while working-class striving and performance tend to rise uniformly in response to reward stimuli, in the middle-class reward-induced increases in striving may either raise the level of performance or touch off anxiety responses that lower it." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toward a broader conception of human intelligence.

Argues that the typical psychometric model of human intelligence is limited because the database fails to take account of the many manifestations of intelligent behavior that are displayed in the world outside the testing room. It is contended that data for factor-analytic studies of intelligence are generally restricted to scores on academic tests that employ only the multiple-choice format and are administered under standard conditions. A review of research studies involving tests that simulate real-world problem situations suggests that the cognitive processes involved in taking a test are influenced not only by test format but also by the situation or setting in which the test is administered and by such personal characteristics as the examinee's level of expertise. It is proposed that the structure of intelligence of the future may not be a static model, but one that varies as subjects change and as circumstances are altered. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)