Unit 11: Testing and Individual Differences

An understanding of intelligence and assessment of individual differences is highlighted in this portion of the course. Students must understand issues related to test construction and fair use.

AP students in psychology should be able to do the following:

• Define intelligence and list characteristics of how psychologists measure intelligence:
•   abstract versus verbal measures;
•   speed of processing
• Discuss how culture in uences the de nition of intelligence
• Compare and contrast historic and contemporary theories of intelligence (e g , Charles Spearman, Howard Gardner, Robert Sternberg)
• Explain how psychologists design tests, including standardization strategies and other techniques to establish reliability and validity
• Interpret the meaning of scores in terms of the normal curve
• Describe relevant labels related to intelligence testing (e g , gifted, cognitively disabled)
• Debate the appropriate testing practices, particularly in relation to culture-fair test uses
• Identify key contributors in intelligence research and testing (e g , Alfred Binet, Francis Galton, Howard Gardner, Charles Spearman, Robert Sternberg, Louis Terman, David Wechsler)

Three huge controversies have sparked recent debate in and beyond psychology. First is the “memory war,” over whether traumatic experiences are repressed and can later be recovered, with therapeutic benefit. The second great controversy is the “gender war,” over the extent to which nature and nurture shape our behaviors as men and women. In this unit, we meet the “intelligence war”: Does each of us have an inborn general mental capacity (intelligence), and can we quantify this capacity as a meaningful number?

School boards, courts, and scientists debate the use and fairness of tests that assess people's mental abilities and assign them a score. Is intelligence testing a constructive way to guide people toward suitable opportunities? Or is it a potent, discriminatory weapon camouflaged as science? First, some basic questions:

• What is intelligence?
• How can we best assess it?
• To what extent does it result from heredity and from environmental influence?

What do test score differences among individuals and groups really mean? Should we use such differences to track the abilities of public school students? To admit them to colleges or universities? To hire them?

This unit offers answers. It identifies a variety of mental gifts. And it concludes that the recipe for high achievement blends talent and grit.