Intelligence and Tests

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Intelligence and Tests
Or Are you really as smart as you think you are?
And how you can find out
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Historical Perspective
Phrenology Craniometry The DilemmaMustard Seed
or Ball Bearings
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Historical Perspective
Alfred Binet Tried to identify mentally retarded
children. Came up with the first IQ test
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Historical Perspective
Mental Age Chronological Age
IQ
A 4 year old who can answer questions that a
typical 6 year old could answer would have an IQ
of 150
Distinguishing Ignorance from Stupidity?
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Historical Perspective
Mean 100 Standard Deviation 15
130 Gifted 145 Genius 70- Moron 55-
Imbecile 25- Idiot
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Triarchic Model
Componential Intelligence skills involving
metacognition, knowledge acquisition Experiential
Intelligence Being able to apply knowledge to
novel situations Contextual Intelligence Common
sense
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Multiple Intelligences
The Savant Problem Brain Damaged Cases Gardners
theory of Multiple Intelligences
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Multiple Intelligences
1) Linguistic 2) Mathematical 3) Spatial 4)
Kinesthetic 5) Musical 6) Interpersonal 7)
Intrapersonal 8) Naturalist/Spiritual
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Artificial Intelligences
Alan Turing and his famous test Dont forget
Demo
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Animal Intelligence
What evidence would be necessary to persuade you
that an animal was intelligent? Continuum vs.
Discrete Measures of Intelligence
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Testing
Face Validity The extent to which a test
appears to test-takers to be valid Content
Validity How well a test provides a
representation of the content domain Criterion
Validity How well the test predicts Construct
Validity Does the content domain measure what
its supposed to
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Item Types
Multiple Choice Easy to administer, hard to
find good distracter items. Likert Scale Item
in which you rate on a scale your level of
agreement even vs. odd Q-sorts checklist of
adjectives susceptible to context effects Free
response Need a coding Scheme
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Test Items
Double Barreled Questions
I didnt vote for Gore because I didnt like his
stance on affirmative action
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Test Items
Redundant Items Lower Content Validity by
Over-sampling parts of the content domain. Mix
positive and negative questions to overcome
positive response bias.
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Test Items
Ambiguous Items lower validity To what extent
to you agree with the following An eye for an
eye, a tooth for a tooth
Turn the other cheek vs. Ill hurt them twice as
much as they hurt me
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Test Items
Ambiguous Items lower validity Im constantly
searching my room for bugs
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Test Items
Demand Characteristics Thank you for your
participation in this study. You have submitted
photographs of yourself, and these have been
reviewed by 100 raters, at least 98 of whom have
classified you as "extremely unattractive." We
believe that especially unattractive people such
as yourself generally have low self-esteem and
feel nervous about interactions with other
people. Please keep this in mind as you fill out
the following survey.
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Administration Issues
Standardization Expectation effects Reinforcing
Responses
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Interpretation Issues
Restricted Range Problems
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Interpretation Issues
Simpsons Paradox Revisited
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Interpretation Issues
Feedback and the Barnum Effect Do Demo Now
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Conclusion

• Intelligence is a tricky concept and is not as
  easily defined as one might think.
• Testing is difficult, and many tests have
  problems that you need to be aware of.

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Assignment 2
Take and evaluate online tests 2-3 pages, doubles
spaced, normal font and margins You can discuss
this with your classmates, but the final analysis
must be your own