Classification of IQ Types of IQ Test
The measurement of adult IQ was greatly advanced by the development of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale WAIS. Then, the Wechsler Intelligence
Scale for Children WISC-R designed for children aged 6 – 16. The various
Wechsler Scales, although designated for different age groups, are very much alike in their basic form and types of content. They are all substantially correlated
with the Stanford-Binet, with which they have much in common, but from which they differ in some important ways. The Wechsler Scales differ from the
Standford-Binet by breaking down the total IQ into two separate components – a
verbal IQ and a performance IQ. The Stanford-Binet contains many different kinds of testing material mixed together, and provides a single “global” IQ score.
The WAIS, however, separates its material into eleven different subscales, which are:
1. Verbal scale
Information What is steam made of? What is pepper?
Comprehension Why do some people save sales receipts?
Arithmetic It takes 3 people 9 days to paint a house.
How many would it take to do it in 3 days?
Digit repetition Repeat the following numbers in order: 1, 3,
7. 2, 5, 4
Similarities In what way are a circle and a triangle alike?
Vocabulary What is a hippopotamus?
2. Performance scale
Picture arrangement A story is told in 3 or more cartoon panels
placed in incorrect order: put them together to tell the story.
Picture completion P
oint out what’s missing from each picture
Block design After looking at a pattern or design, try to
arrange small colored cubes in the same pattern.
Object assembly Given pieces with part of a picture on each,
put them together to form such objects as a hand or a face.
Digit symbol Learn a different symbol for each number
and then fill in the blank under the number with the correct symbol.
The first six scales together are combined to give a verbal IQ, while the last five scales give a performance IQ. The total IQ is basically the average of the
two. The verbal and performance IQs are substantially correlated with each other, and each is correlated with the Standford-Binet IQ
– the verbal IQ somewhat more so. There are individual cases, however, in which the verbal and
performance IQs are very different. This can often be informative and might indicate language difficulty or reading or perceptual disabilities.
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Moreover, group tests of intelligence sacrifice the detail and the kinds of intimate personal knowledge available from an individual testing session, but they
are obviously necessary if very large groups of people are to be examined. The first impetus for group tests came at the time of World War I, when the United
States Army decided to test draftees. Two group tests – the Alpha and the Beta
were quickly developed. Typically, the group tests are administered simultaneously to large numbers of people, with paper, pencil, and multiple
choice answer blanks.
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c The Spearman’s theory
For Spearman, intelligence consists of two kinds of factors. The first is general factor, termed “g” for general intelligence. The higher the value of “g”,
the more intelligent a person is. The second factor is specific to particular domain of knowledge, such as verbal ability, spatial ability, or quantitative ability. These
two factors are consistent with what ordinarily expect of people. Generally,
25
John M. Darley, op. cit., 1986, pp. 333 – 335.
26
Ibid., 1986, pp. 335 – 336.
someone who scores high on one test of intelligence, such as vocabulary, will also score high on another, such as analogical reasoning.
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He had been able to gather moderate support for Galton’s notions by correlating teachers’ ratings and grades with measures of sensory acuity, but soon
realized that the tasks assembled in the Binet-Simon scale provided a far more useful and reliable way of assessing intelligence than the tools he had been using.
Even though Spearman and Binet differed widely in their views about the nature of intelligence, their combined contributions are unsurpassed in propelling the
development of psychological testing in the 20th century.
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d Raymond Cattel and John Horn
Similar with the Spearman, Cattel and Horn proposed a new model of intelligence which broke down Spearman’s general intelligence into two distinct
but related subtypes of “g”. Crystallized intelligence g
c
is the ability to apply previously acquired knowledge to current problems. Then, Cattel and Horn
defined fluid intelligence g
f
as the ability to deal with novel problem-solving situations for which personal experience does not provide a solution. In involves
inductive reasoning and creative problem-solving skills. People high in fluid intelligence can perceive relations among stimulus patterns and draw inferences
from relationship. Therefore, Cattel and Horn concluded that over people life span, people
progress from using fluid intelligence to depending more on crystallized intelligence. Early in life, people encounter many problems for the first time, so
people need fluid intelligence to figure out solutions. As experience makes people more knowledgeable, people need to approach each situation as a new problem.
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In this case, one of example of the IQ test which constructed by Cattel and Horn is Culture Fair Intelligence Test CFIT. CFIT is such a test which would
utilize only elements common to all cultures. In actual practice, the test use paper
27
Ibid, 1986, p. 318.
28
Susana Urbina, Essentials of Psychological Testing, New York: John Wiley Sons, Inc., 2004, p.14.
29
Michael W. Passer, and Ronald E. Smith, Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behavior, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009, pp. 334
– 335.
and pencil or the presentation of abstract tasks which have no immediate practical significance will favor some cultural groups and handicap others.
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In the CFIT items, for the culture embedded, one can usually get to words, but not always to a single verbal symbol for the relation. There was no word in
chemistry for a “valency” for some years after the relation was dimly apprehended. The attempt to handle intelligent discrimination in terms of
semantics of verbal equivalents for relations therefore breaks down, not only for the reasons just given - mainly that words do not exist for many relations - but
also because psychologists have long been aware that problem solving often occurs in any case though visual, kinesthetic, and other nameless forms of
representation by imagery.
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The Culture Fair tests consist of three scales with non-verbal visual puzzles. Scale I includes eight subtests of mazes, copying symbols, identifying
similar drawings and other non-verbal tasks. Both Scales II and III consists of four subtests that include completing a sequence of drawings, a classification subtest
where respondents pick a drawing that is different from other drawings, a matrix subtests that involves completing a matrix of patterns and conditions subtests
which involve which out of several geometric designs fulfill a specific given condition.
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