|
Post by Youngster Joey on Apr 17, 2012 18:57:14 GMT -5
I thought we were talking about the overall applicability, not just art schools? Well, whatever, that's a whole different beast, and a case in which the SAT/ACT are irrelevant. It may differ for public colleges, but most private art schools couldn't care less how you do academically as long as you have talent. Completely different situation.
|
|
|
Post by Umbra on Apr 17, 2012 22:54:01 GMT -5
I was actually talking about the overall applicability, and public colleges were my target.
|
|
|
Post by Youngster Joey on Apr 27, 2013 21:52:17 GMT -5
So! I was rereading this thread and noted I mentioned the ACT/SAT correlating highly with IQ scores. I've been thinking a lot about the validity of IQ tests lately.
How valid do you all think they are? Do they do a good job of testing fluid, raw intelligence? Or do you think they're more a function of how well-educated and wealthy you are?
If you don't think they're particularly valid, what way do you think intelligence should be tested? Or is it not really testable at all to begin with?
|
|
|
Post by sukotsuto on Apr 27, 2013 23:28:42 GMT -5
Ehhh what do I know? Multiple choice? Brainy pencil-pushers are up there, knowing what's what. They test me, they tell me I'm no genius, end of story. Tell me my place and here I am in the job site 9 to 5. Just gimme my cup o' joe and I'm fine.
|
|
|
Post by gαявαge on Apr 28, 2013 21:38:42 GMT -5
I think intelligence is a difficult parameter to measure, especially because it's definition is subject to the theory in current usage, which is susceptible to change over time. Plus, the concept of intelligence is very broad, and I think a standardized test will never be enough to measure it. Statistically, IQ correlates with and predicts certain social outcomes, such as school performance, but I think that it doesn't measure all mental abilities associated with intelligence.
Regarding Multiple Choice Testing, I consider it very limiting in terms of measuring application, problem-solving, analysis, evaluation and synthesis. However, a good teacher should be able to effectively elaborate questions that measure these aspects. I think oral and written testing is more effective in measuring a broad spectrum of abilities, but on the other hand is very time consuming, specially if you have to test a large number of students, and is subject to the subjectivity of the teacher doing the evaluation.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 29, 2013 10:57:01 GMT -5
I think oral and written testing is more effective in measuring a broad spectrum of abilities. ^though it could be hard on teachers & students but I also agree... Multiple Choices are cheaters paradise... save it for RPGs & visual novels....
|
|
|
Post by Umbra on Apr 29, 2013 13:10:24 GMT -5
IQ tests and SAT/ACT scores are not as reliable for measuring intelligence as people would have them.
There are many factors that can potentially have a negative effect on the test taker's performance. For example, I scored badly on my college placement exam for math 2 years ago and was placed in a lower algebra class even though I knew I could place higher given if I had more sleep or just put more effort into the test. Other problems to consider are white American cultural biased questions, those with ADHD (unmedicated), and those who simply get frustrated taking tests or simply do not like them (my mom).
I don't think there really is a good way to capture all of human intelligence and compile it into a score (that may as well be subjective.) Human intelligence is not a simple thing, we do not truly understand it and so we cannot ascertain the intelligence of people simply from a test score. I have seen mentally challenged individuals who display more intelligence (creativity) than the common person.
|
|
|
Post by sukotsuto on Apr 29, 2013 13:27:47 GMT -5
Wouldn't those physiological factors play a role on intelligence anyway? In hindsight, not getting enough sleep is itself is an unintelligent idea. Also being unable to be patient to take the test in the first place would also mean being easily frustrated in learning certain things, so it affects a person's intellectual potential. Sure there are a few kinks here and there, but the current testing methods may be the best way to gauge capacity for intelligence up until they revise it with some new way. Even if one's intelligence is theoretically impossible to determine, we always feel the need to measure everything to some standard, and that's fine. The problem seem to arise on how we react to these tests and their results, like how people react on the IQ bell curve and the racial issue. And an example of a reaction is how I was bothered that I was one IQ point short from making it to Mensa when I was tested as a kid. Fat chance of that happening now, since I've become a little more impatient as I grow older, as well as my IQ points may have dropped a few since
|
|
|
Post by Hiro the Half-Elf on Apr 29, 2013 17:36:42 GMT -5
Not sleeping before your test is not a smart decision, but it doesn't really correlate with intelligence. After all, the person in question is still aware that the option was less-than-optimal. I don't really think you can judge someone's intelligence based on their daily choices. After all, the smartest people on Earth consistently make questionable decisions.
Life is a series of non-optimal decisions.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 29, 2013 19:17:40 GMT -5
So can we say that people these days aren't getting any smarter?
|
|
|
Post by sukotsuto on Apr 29, 2013 21:00:23 GMT -5
Not sleeping before your test is not a smart decision, but it doesn't really correlate with intelligence. After all, the person in question is still aware that the option was less-than-optimal. I don't really think you can judge someone's intelligence based on their daily choices. After all, the smartest people on Earth consistently make questionable decisions. Life is a series of non-optimal decisions. I don't know, I feel even stupid little things we do everyday can be factors that affect our intelligence one way or another, may it be short-term or in the long run. I feel overall intelligence also include time-management, decisiveness, and knowing when to keep one's emotions and frustrations in check. It also depends on what the standards are for intelligence. Is it just our ability to process information? How we interpret it? How we apply this info? How we survive? Our ability to recall from memory? How we can effective decide on the right choice at the right time? How we can perceive more than others? Foresight on what's to happen in n number of years? Would someone who decided to not waste time taking these tests and school, and instead would hustle on something that eventually led them to rise and become billionaires be smarter than a mathematicians doing nothing but try to solve difficult equations and number theories, if our ability to survive in our environment is the absolute standard for intelligence? Eh let em' decide who's brainier, if they think that's the smart thing to do.
|
|
|
Post by Youngster Joey on May 6, 2013 18:24:41 GMT -5
Huh, thought I responded to this. Guess my post didn't go through. Anyway, I don't think not sleeping before an exam is necessarily indicative of intelligence. Poor planning skills can be indicative of poor executive function, but that's not necessarily correlated with general intelligence. In any case, I don't put a lot of stock in intelligence tests. I think they test for something, certainly--they're standardized and have high reliability across the lifespan and between tests. (Contrary to your point about being tired, Umbra, people test within 2-5 points of their original score about 95% of the time across test dates.) And on top of that, if we describe intelligence as a general quickness of thought and analytical skill, sure, they give a rough measure of intelligence. Someone who is mentally retarded isn't going to get the same score as someone of normal intelligence. I think where the reliability of intelligence tests breaks down is when you try to compare across populations. It's true that in theory intelligence tests are standardized across the population, but I'm not so sure the current way we standardize the tests accurately captures people's intelligence. There are a ton of variables that can affect intelligence, and I don't think they're always accurately controlled for. For instance, socioeconomic level is highly correlated with scores. Some might argue this is because smart people tend to be richer, which is probably true to some degree. You're not going to pull in six figures as a doctor if you've got an IQ of 80, after all. However, I think more often than not, the reverse is true--rich people tend to be "smarter" because they've had access to opportunities that poor people haven't. Rich people are more likely to have gone to better schools, access to good nutrition and healthcare, and childcare, among other things. It's true that intelligence is highly heritable, but those things do affect intelligence. Case in point: I read a study recently reporting how poor African-American children adopted into upper-middle-class families had an IQ boost of more than 10 points over control children who stayed with their poor birthmothers. Why? More enriching environment. Of course it follows that a person who's gone to good schools and has educated parents who read to them every night will score better on, say, vocabulary than the poor inner-city kid. Not because the inner city kid is stupider, but because he's probably been exposed to thousands of fewer words than the wealthy child. I wouldn't really give a ton of credence to an IQ test comparing the two, since the environment variables are so vast. They're not on an equal playing field. Where I would find an IQ relevant, however, would be comparing the rich kid to another rich kid in similar circumstances, or the inner city kid against another inner city kid. I know they've tried to redesign IQ tests to control for variables like this, but trust me, unless they've significantly changed the tests from when I last took them a couple years ago, it's still got a long way to go. (Hell, I remember on both the Woodrooster-Johnson and Weschler tests, their way of testing vocabulary was just asking me words of increasing difficulty until I'd made a certain number of errors. A score like that is heavily influenced by education quality.) Quibbling about IQ tests' reliability aside, do intelligence tests have high construct validity to begin with? Probably not. Intelligence as a whole is just too vast and complicated to be measured. IQ tests right now only test for a small portion of it. So can we say that people these days aren't getting any smarter? Depending on how you want to interpret the Flynn Effect (the phenomenon of average IQ scores rising steadily over the past century), you could say the opposite, actually! But I'm with the camp that says the Flynn Effect is due to increased formal education, not due to actual increased intelligence.
|
|