Module 61 Assessing Intelligence
An intelligence test assesses people’s mental aptitudes and compares them with those of others, using numerical scores. How do we design such tests, and what makes them credible?
By this point in your life, you’ve faced dozens of ability tests: school tests of basic reading and math skills, class quizzes and tests, intelligence tests, or maybe a driver’s license exam. Psychologists classify such tests as either achievement tests, intended to reflect what you have learned, or aptitude tests, intended to predict your ability to learn a new skill. Exams covering what you have learned in this course (like the AP® exam) are achievement tests. A college entrance exam, which seeks to predict your ability to do college work, is an aptitude test—a “thinly disguised intelligence test,” says Howard Gardner (1999b). Indeed, total scores on the U.S. SAT have correlated +0.82 with general intelligence test scores in a national sample of 14- to 21-year-olds (Frey & Detterman, 2004; Figure 61.1).
Figure 61.1 Close cousins: Aptitude and intelligence test scores
A scatterplot shows the close correlation that has existed between intelligence test scores and SAT scores.