The Ethics Of Intelligence Tests Essay

When one speaks of intelligence or how bright another person is, the often quoted figure is the IQ or intelligence quotient. It is the most often used standard of how smart a person is. This paper shall look at what intelligence tests measure, how the IQ tests measure intelligence and interrogate their history. It shall then apply the tests to school policy and hence evaluate their validity.

Any child that is in any type of schooling knows what standardized testing is. It is required in every state of America, and not a single child likes it. In recent years a controversial issue has been weather or not standardized testing should be used to judge a person’s intelligence. On one hand, many people believe that standardized testing should not be used because they say it is not a good way to judge a person’s real-world intelligence. On the other hand, however, others argue that standardized testing is an excellent way to predict a person’s intelligence.

Intelligence testing is rather arbitrary as people can have many kinds of intelligence strengths and it's difficult to assign a measure of intelligence without flaws in the system. Though there are attempts at keeping standardization and norms to keep results unbiased and consistent there are still failings, which the most viable of those failings is that with intelligence testing and capital punishment such as the case of Daryl Atkins. Atkins was tested at an intelligence quotient of 59, which is about half the average score of 100 ("Module 7.5: Measures of Intelligence"., n.d.). The original jury had sentenced a mentally impaired man to death until it was taken to the Supreme Court where they ruled that it would be a cruel and unusual punishment,

Standardized tests have become a recent controversial topic across the nation. Americans strive for a great education system, but fail to realize that testing is the main issue. It is believed that they are a simple way to evaluate students from all different areas. However, there are countless faults that cannot truly show students’ ability. Standardized tests in the United States do not accurately measure intelligence and should be modified to prevent issues in academics.

According to Mc Loughlin and Lewis, (2009), “standardized test are great sources of information when assessing a child”. However, there is no one to one determination between performance on an intelligence test and performance in school. Other aspects for consideration, includes motivation, life experiences, one’s health and emotional state and the individual’s talents and interests. Methods of Assessment Formative assessment techniques monitor student learning during the learning process. The feedback gathered is used to identify areas where students are struggling so that instructors can adjust their teaching and students can adjust their studying, (Wechsler 4th ed., 2003).

Interest in intelligence dates back thousands of years. But it wasn't until psychologist Alfred Binet was commissioned to identify French students who needed educational assistance that the first IQ (intelligent quotient) test was born. The problem found by early psychologists was not in defining intelligence but rather measuring intelligence. The test that Binet and Simon divised early in the century distinguished between fast and slow learner and also between children of different age groups. Then Lewis Terman compared mental age and chronological age to assess intelligence and the result is called an intelligence quotient. These early tests worked well with children but had limitations as age increased. David Weschsler developed a test for adults. In fact, he designed several tests including the WAUS-IV (for adults), the WISC-IV (for children), and WPPSI-IV (for pre-school). Today the use of these tests are more prevalent than the Stanford-Binet tests (Ciccarelli & White, 2015, p. 277). On the early intelligence tests in the beginning of the 20th-century, immigrants were given tests to enter the United States. The problem lies in the fact that most immigrants did not speak the English language. There are many today who criticize standardized tests by saying they are culturally and racially biased.

It is notable to mention that the individual’s attainment measured by general intelligence tests are indeed broader and the products of less formal and usually less recent learning experiences compared to the ones measured by standardized achievement tests (Aiken, 2003c). Cohen et al. (2013b) regarded that the primary purpose for this kind of measure is that it focuses on the test taker’s level of comprehension in the different subject matters. These types of tests are commonly structured to include several subject areas divided into subtests and are most typically identified as test batteries. Interestingly, achievement tests often serve as better predictors of school ratings than tests of intelligence or special abilities. This does not connote, however, that test of achievement in a specific subject can entirely replace tests of intelligence and special abilities. The accomplishments or achievements determined by general intelligence tests are usually extensive and formed by less formal and probably less recent learning experiences than those measured by standardized tests of achievement. Moreover, for the reason that achievement tests usually evaluate knowledge of information that has been methodically taught, scores on these tests are more influenced by coaching than scores on intelligence tests.

From the psychometric tradition to the cognitive development literature, researchers do not agree about the attributes that best represent adult intelligence, whether intelligence is fully available to measurement, how adult intelligence should be measured, and whether adult intellect is stable or malleable during maturity (Hoare, 2006).

Intelligence tests are psychological tests that meet specific psychometric benchmarks and employs standardized instruments to target cognitive domains. It aims to measure a wide variety of human behaviors, which will allow specialists to have a uniform way of comparing a person's performance with that of other people who are similar in age. Therefore, it is important that intelligence tests be reliable, valid and interpreted by trained examiners in order to provide an idea of a person's intellectual

When it comes to intelligence test, aptitude test, and achievement test we know that each test focuses on different areas that help identify and evaluate a variety of skills and abilities a child might have. Some kids today face academic problems whether is language or origin and require special attention. The main focus is the effective, competent, and ethical application of assessment methods in various settings and with diverse populations. (Drummond, 2010). Having the proper research and understanding will definitely be beneficial in obtaining positive results and this is valuable information only these test can

Content validity measures the extent to which the test measures what it says it will measure. To ensure the WPPSI-IV had sufficient content validity, expert panels reviewed each revision of individual items and subtests at each stage of the development process. Furthermore, literature reviews were conducted, which yielded lengthy explanations of the construct each subtest was designed to measure (Syeda & Climie, 2014; Wechsler, 2012b). Test administrators interviewed individuals who had common incorrect responses and asked them to explain their problem-solving process. Utilizing the feedback from the examinees, the test developers altered items to decrease the likelihood of these common incorrect responses (Syeda & Climie, 2014). Pearson provided adequate correlation coefficients between the WPPSI-IV and the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test – Third Edition (WIAT-III), and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children – Fourth Edition (WISC-IV), demonstrating convergent validity. Additionally, low correlation coefficients between tests that measured unrelated constructs demonstrated divergent validity (Wechsler,

Psychologist Lewis Terman devoted his time studying gifted children. Lewis Terman created a test to measure the intelligence of individuals known as the Stanford-Binet. Terman tested 250,000 elementary and high

Alfred Binet, once a pioneer of craniometry, came to the conclusion that he allowed bias to influence the results of his experiments on human intelligence. In 1905, Binet created the Binet-Simon Scale, a scale that sought to discover the measurement of a human’s intelligence without bringing brain size into the equation. However, IQ testing did not become popular outside of Binet’s native

This assessment instruments are administered individually where scales manifested in a battery format are used to conduct composite intelligence tests. I chose this assessment because intelligence or IQ measurement is very significant in determining a person’s smartness that helps explain why some people perform well in their studies while others do not. These intelligence scales assess various intellectual ability areas and provide a scenario where different personality aspects can be

Many students will have gone through some type of intelligence testing. In the days of Alfred Binet, intelligence testing was intended to identify children with mental underdevelopment and give them special attention (Tuckman & Monetti, 2011). The testing has evolved, but administrations do continue to test intelligence for that purpose. However, in the United States, intelligence testing is more often used to determine children with above-average intelligence. These children are then put in accelerated programs and afforded better access to resources. It is a program that has received criticism but continues to exist in many school districts and jurisdictions.