Why should intelligence tests not be used in schools?
Validity of Testing
IQ tests have the potential to inaccurately measure an individual's intelligence and cause problems including low confidence, unrealistic expectations, and just a generally flawed understanding of a person's potential.
Many critics have argued that IQ tests ignore or underestimate the contribution of factors like emotion, social skills, motivation or even morality.
For example, an IQ test may help to identify a child who is gifted, but who also has dyslexia or difficulties with visual processing (dual exceptionality). There are also limitations to IQ tests that professionals need to be aware of. The tests provide a 'snapshot' of a child's responses at the time of taking the test.
7 But it is generally accepted that intelligence testing can be useful to identify gifted children and children with developmental delays. They can also be used to highlight areas a child excels in and point out areas where they might require extra support.
Individual tests are time-consuming and costly to administer. Individual tests require a trained and skillful examiner to administer, score, and interpret them. These tests cannot be used for mass testing.
The disadvantages of group intelligence tests are that they are objective tests that do not take into account other factors for test performance. The test is administered to a group of people versus an individual test that is given to one person at a time. A person may experience anxiety in a group intelligence test.
One of the major criticisms of intelligence tests is that they do not take into account cultural differences. This means that intelligence tests are typically designed for one specific culture and almost all of them are designed for Western cultures.
A reliable test produces similar scores upon repetition. On aggregate, IQ tests exhibit high reliability, although test-takers may have varying scores when taking the same test on differing occasions, and may have varying scores when taking different IQ tests at the same age.
Today, most IQ tests assess a range of cognitive abilities, including verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory, and processing speed. Despite efforts to improve the validity and reliability of IQ tests, research has shown that these tests are inherently biased towards certain groups of society.
What are two problems with IQ testing?
IQ tests are also criticized because the results are often used to label some students as slow learners. Finally, IQ tests do not offer information on motivation, emotion, attitudes, and other similar factors that may have a strong bearing on a person's success in school and in life.
How do intelligence or mental abilities tests help students? A child may do poorly in school for reasons unknown to a teacher or a school psychologist. An intelligence test can uncover valuable information about cognitive abilities that assist the teacher in helping the child develop his or her full potential.
Individual IQ tests administered by a psychologist are much more reliable than group tests, but even the latter can provide helpful information. IQ tests give reasonably effective results for children from about age four; however, scores are less reliable for preschool children than for school-age children.
According to some researchers, the “cultural specificity” of intelligence makes IQ tests biased towards the environments in which they were developed – namely white, Western society. This makes them potentially problematic in culturally diverse settings.
IQ scores were comparatively better than personality or grades at predicting scores on achievement tests. But when it came to grades, personality was a better predictor.
The relationship between IQ and academic performance has been shown to extend to one's children. In a study measuring a range of family background characteristics they found that maternal IQ was a stronger predictor of children's test scores than any other family characteristics, including socioeconomic status.
Tests can be biased in terms of impact (e.g., how they are used) and statistically. Tests can be biased if they treat groups unfairly or discriminate against diverse groups by, for example, "underestimating their potential or over-pathologizing their symptoms" (Suzuki et al., 1996, p. xiii).
What is one of the major criticisms of intelligence tests? They're culturally biased.
Concerns have been raised, however, that these tests may have a racial or socioeconomic bias. Another problem is that intelligence tests are often created with a single culture in mind, so they may not truly reflect how smart people from diverse cultures are.
Others contend that tests can be culturally-reduced, that bias can be decreased; still others contend that tests can never be bias free or culturally neutral because they are developed by people, they reflect the culture of the test developer, and absolute fairness to every examinee is impossible to attain, for no ...
What are the disadvantages of using selection tests?
Pre-employment assessment tests show whether applicants have the skills and experience to do a job. However, they do not help hiring teams determine whether a candidate has a workstyle and behavior traits that will help them succeed in their company culture.
An IQ test should only be done if it will benefit the child by improving his/her educational program. IQ tests should not be done if a child is too young (under 7) and/or the scores would not be reliable based on the child's disability. Here are some beneficial and not beneficial reasons for conducting an IQ test.
The result you get from an IQ test only provides you with a number, which doesn't paint the whole picture, and doesn't allow you to decide whether that candidate is the right fit for your company. This is why IQ testing is mostly becoming an obsolete recruitment strategy.
An intelligence test is designed to understand ability. It does this by assessing critical thinking, learning abilities and so on. Thomas' General Intelligence Assessment (GIA) measures an individual's aptitude in 5 key areas: Reasoning, Perceptual Speed, Number Speed & Accuracy, Word Meaning and Spatial Visualisation.
Cultural Bias in Intelligence Testing
The implications of this bias are profound, especially when IQ tests are administered in culturally diverse contexts. Utilizing the same test across different communities may lead to an oversight of the cultural values that shape each community's unique perception of intelligence.
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