Sample Essay: IQ Testing Tells Us Little About The Person’s Innate Abilities. They Merely Reflect The Educational Level Of The Individual

Introduction

An intelligent quotient test shows the mental abilities of an individual compared to others of the same age. Each and every person has the specific mental abilities which can be measured and may be used to predict the education performance and financial success of an individual.

Body

In a school situation, Intelligent quotient was initially used to detects students with the lower intelligent. This was principally done to ensure that those students with lower intelligent were given special education programs. The IQ test was done to compare the intelligent of a student to what his or her intelligent is expected to be relative to the student’s age. The outcomes of the test were given in terms of the score.  The high IQ score was given to a brighter student who had a higher intelligent than a normal child of his or her age. The students who scored lower than what is expected for a student of his or her age was assigned lower IQ score (Kaufman, & Lichtenberger, 1999).

The use of the IQ test in the past or at present was or is basically to determine problems in the learning process.  This test could be use to detect the performance of an individual in a school situation or at work places. It has been observed that the individuals who get high IQ score can perform better in school or at work. This test has been in use by many schools and companies in identifying those people who may require special attention. It was also used by the schools to assist them in enrolling students to the right grade and, at the same time various organizations adopt this method to help them in identifying the right employees to recruit in the company.

However, According (Anastasi, 1961), the IQ test faced the claims on its effectiveness in the measurement of the innate abilities of the person. Even if IQ test can measure the abilities of the child, we believed that this intelligence can change based on the conditions a child is exposed to.

In a modern society, IQ test is used to measure not only a child’s intelligent but also psychological abilities of an adult person, where  the scores are given relative to other adults who have also went through the same test. A number of factors have been seen to influence the intelligent level of a person as discussed by the different theorist. As a result, this has created criticism on the validity and reliability of the IQ test. These factors include, age, culture, motivation, labeling, heredity, and environment among others.

The research on age for example shown that a child who is two years old and has  a two years advanced mentally has an IQ score of 200 but the same child six years later and still advanced mentally two years measure an IQ score of 120. The age different of the child has really led a different score hence has been viewed not appropriate measure of a person intelligent (McClelland, 1974).

Motivation is another factor that may affect the individual’s abilities.  For, example, if an individual is positively motivated physically and mentally, then this may affect the IQ intelligent test.

According to (Weschler David, 1939), intelligent of a person is based on inheritance. For example, he noted that twins usually have a positive correlation in IQ score test. Another aspect that has been considered to affect the intelligence of a person is the environment. School performance likewise would be affected by the environment and this can take time to be changed.

The proponents of this factor argued that though people are born with some intelligent abilities, the environment where they are reared on could perhaps shapes their intelligent as well. For example, a child that is not given due attention for a long time while still young will develop intelligence disabilities later in life. On the other hand a child that is given enough care will show better intellectual abilities in life. The test on the identical twins that are reared together will shows a close or the same IQ score , while those  twins that are reared a part will give different IQ test, (Jensen, 1969)

There is no accepted universal definition of intelligent, however, intelligent can be generally be defined as what an intelligent test can measured. The problem with this definition is that it does not describe the potential of a person or give the precise nature of intelligent as expected. Quinones strongly believed that intelligent is culturally relative and refute that IQ test could correctly measure intelligent of a person across different culture. This claim was also supported by Kaufmamn. However, he argues that this problem is not as serious as in the previous model of the intelligent test. In the modern society, the theorists of the intelligent test have improved their review process to ensure that measurement of the intelligent are independent of culture (Kaufman, 1983). It is however, obvious that those reviewers seen as being culturally biased has little effect on the overall intelligent scores. However, it should also be noted that the intelligent is mental ability independent of culture.

IQ test was also criticized as being the self fulfilling prophecy issue. For instance, the individuals who are expected to score low will eventually do so. According to the work done on a self fulfilling prophecy, black student has been regarded as being affected by the stereotype vulnerability. However, Kaufman in his work asserts that the stereotype vulnerability does not affect the black only, but have been seen to affect the white people also. Therefore, according to this claim, it is evident that labeling an individual earlier does not necessarily mean that they are really victims of the circumstances mention.

Another claim is the idea that IQ test could correctly measure the person’s innate abilities or intelligence. Weschler however claimed that students who score highly on a mathematical test could definitely perform well in vocabulary. This has been taken by some individuals that all mental abilities may be determined by some of the intelligence level. However, this view has been refuted by Jensen claiming that there exist various dimensions to intelligent and hence IQ test are not appropriate for testing abilities such as music and mechanical talents. We should understand that, most of the intelligence ideas are seen in individual’s sense of fairness. For example, a particular student may not be good in mathematic, but is good in other subjects such as music or mechanical engineering (Jensen, 1969).

Jensen argued that IQ test does not measure correctly all the human abilities that may be viewed as features of intelligent. According to Jensen lack of accepted definition of intelligent is what causes IQ test not to be valid. He further asserted that intelligent is like other scientific concepts that can be measured even before understanding the meaning of the measurement.

Some of the claim about the IQ test is that it wrongly stratifying people by race, gender, class and culture and hence it reduces the significant of creativity and technological know-how. It also bring a concept that human being have inborn unchangeable intelligent abilities that reflect their achievement in life.

Learning abilities have been tested for many years using an IQ test where those children who scored less than what their IQ score in expected are considered to be disabled. The problem with this method is that it does not indicate what can be done to help this child. The ability of the child is shown by his or her behavior either at home or in a classroom. In this sense, if the learning process is appropriate, then the child behavior could also be improved, and thus, IQ test should at all be disregarded.

Even some of the strong supporters of the IQ test, such as Anastasi and Jensen argued that the IQ achievement discrepancy model is faulty. They claimed that this model lack the real issue of whether it can be useful when correctly administered.

Factor analysis has been used to measure the validation of IQ test, since it breaks the test into several different factors, and then, it shows how these factors are intercorrelate to particular level. However, this method does not indicate that the general intelligent of a person can be tested using the IQ test. The claim is that, IQ test some times may decide to compare an intelligent child from a dull one by giving a test on particular items.  The fact that an intelligent child failed the test on a particular item does not imply that such items are appropriate for disguising this child from a dull one since such item may have been drawn out or put in a particular place on the age scale.

The validation of the IQ scores as been viewed many times as the measure of the school performance order. This refutes the idea that IQ test is a measure of cognitive capacity of a person. Testing of the intelligent based on the performance on a particular items cannot really shows the achievement or level of a bright child from a dull one. Furthermore, the capacity test can only be measured based on the current behavior of an individual which could predicts his or her future behavior. Therefore according to this claim IQ test seems to be unnecessary measure for testing people’s abilities.

IQ test has been viewed to be full of a lot of speculations. Its concept is not well understood by many people and the method it applies does not provide a good explanation of how the intelligence is tested in relation to the other factors such as environment and culture.

Intelligent of a child can be determined by the changes that occur in a school situation. The variations of the school programs have been observed to increase or boost the child performance later in life. For instance, if the variation in the school programs does not change the child abilities then the IQ test which basically measure the skills of the child, may be deemed as a real measure of a fixed capacity. However, this performance will not last longer before it changes, and thus, the IQ test have greatly failed to improve the intelligent and instead encouraged only apparent achievement of a person.

Lastly, it is clear that the IQ test achievement discrepancy model is highly flawed. Kaufman argued that the IQ discrepancy model is based on the fundamental misunderstanding of the Wechsler scores which, according to him were not to be used to as a single summed number Kaufman &Lichtenberger, 1999). IQ test does not give the general innate abilities or the educational performance of the child. One wonders what validation or the hypothesis is provided by this test. The ideas and the rules set does not seems credible for the testing of the intelligent

Conclusion

Though many people have refuted IQ test, human being can not do without these test. However, those individuals using these tests should be well educated to be conversant with what the tests means to us. Actually IQ test are not the real predictors and does not shows some features such as the goodness of a person. Total ban of the IQ test is not important, however the testers should develop a modern process of testing intelligence that can appeal and be useful to people. From the above discussion, it is clear that the intelligence of a person depends not only on the ideas and the skills of the person but also on other several factors which may either be externally or internally located. Therefore, we can conclude that an IQ test does not provide an essential measure for testing the innate or educational potentials of a person.

Reference:

Anastasi, A. (1961). Testing the Psychological Path, Macmillan Company, New York.

Jensen, A. (1969).   Boosting IQ and scholastic success? Harvard             Educ. Rev., 39, 1-123.

Kaufman, A. S., & Lichtenberger, E. O. (1999). Essentials of WAIS-III assessment. New            York:   Wiley.

Kaufman, A.S., & Kaufman, N.L. (1983). K-ABC interpretative manual. Circle Pines, MN:       American Guidance Service. (2 nd ed., 2004, KABC-II)

McClelland, D. (1974). Testing competence rather than Intelligence, in Gartner, Greer and         Riessman, eds., New Assault on Equality, Perennial Library, New York.

Quinones, M. (1997). Training for a Rapidly Changing Workplace: Applications of          Psychological Research. Rice University, Michigan.

Weschler, David (1935).  Measurement intelligence of the adult. Baltimore: Williams &Wilkins.