IQ Testing

[The Dark Lord]

I don't know about you guys, but I believe IQ testing is a crock o' shit.

 

Why? First off, IQ testing is popular because people believe it is a good way to measure intelligence. One problem with trying to quantitatively measure someone's intelligence is that the very definition of 'intelligence' is itself controversial and not entirely agreed upon. Moreover, it doesn't make much sense to measure intelligence by having tasks in which someone manipulates a puzzle within a certain amount of time. This doesn't really take into account that a person could simply have slower reflexes, causing them to be a little bit slower when manipulating the objects. Likewise, if a student was bubbling in answers during a test, they might not finish every question within the allotted time. One possible reason for this is that the child might have Obsessive-Compulsive tendencies, and the reason why it's taking them so long to bubble in the answers is because they are literally trying to fill in every single bubble perfectly. It is my contention that a far more accurate way to measure 'factors of intelligence' such as problem-solving would be to use a machine that allows a person to manipulate objects on a computer screen with cognition alone. IQ tests may also ask conceptual questions ranging in difficulty from relatively easy to difficult; one issue that I have with this is that a person (in particular, a child) might not be able to answer certain questions simply because they haven't learned the information yet. This is a good way to measure someone's innate intellectual capabilities, no?

 

I also have a major problem with IQ testing because of some of the consequences that a child could face. For example, say a child takes an IQ test during grade school. The child is very bright and makes good grades. The child's parents try to get him into the school's Gifted and Talented program, and the GT program requires an IQ score of 133. The child takes the test and scores a 120. There were questions that the child didn't know how to answer simply because he wasn't taught the information yet, and the child also had some obsessive-compulsive tendencies, causing them to fill in answers more slowly. Because of the child's "inferior" score, the teacher in charge of the program haughtily dismisses the child, much to the parents' anger. This experience causes the child to feel inferior, and the child becomes less motivated to work hard in school (and possibly even develops depression later on in life because of their feeling of inferiority that they developed). Now, this is just an example, but I believe it can illustrate quite well the ethical issues associated with schools performing IQ testing on children in order to quantitatively measure intelligence. This can lead to labeling as well as some serious consequences for the child (they have to go through a shitty education because the regular classes suck, they get mocked at by other smart kids, feel inferior, become depressed, etc.).

 

Of course, I'm not necessarily saying that the IQ test can't at least guage things such as mental retardation or perhaps distinguish a smart person from the general population, but I believe that the way these tests are used is pseudoscientific and unethical.

 

What are your thoughts?

 

Oh, and I'd like to add that I study psychology.

[enfield]

i'm pretty sold on their utility. society is much better off with them than without them I think. the only thing that worries me a bit are the phycological sacrifices that are made to obtain the information (the SAT is practically an IQ test, and it causes many kids lots of stress and bad feelings and so on, which, if possible, i wish could be avoided). But there is no way to segregate people nicely.

 

of course they could be better and everything, perhaps computerized like you suggested to avoid certain problems - and in fact the tests for graduate school are - but all in all those kinds of changes seem like minor improvements. I feel like we're already probably at the point of diminishing returns, where putting in more effort to achieve more reliable results and distinctions of finer variations might not be practical.

[Randox]

Someone just got a low score on an IQ test :P

 

No, but seriously...

 

Like any test, it measures your performance at certain tasks. If the test is testing the skills you need measured, then great. Maybe for some reason (just pulling one out of your examples) you need people who can answer questions really quickly.

 

And before I forget, the point about children, IQ tests would be pointless before a certain age anyway, because there are certain skills that an adolecent mind simply doesn't have, mostly in the abstract reasoning department, which limits the math you can do, as well as problem solving and reasoning.

 

It's been quite a while since I've taken an IQ test (something like a decade), so I'm not really familiar with what it actually asks you. My impression is general knowledge. I also don't feel that there is any one criteria that defines intelligence. People are smart in different ways. For example, I am a terrible strategic thinker, which is why I suck so badly at chess and checkers (that last time I beat someone in chess, I was 5 years older, and it wasn't a one sided game). I also had grade 11 reading comprehension when I was in grade 4 (my reading might be excellent, but my spelling was non-existent until the last couple years of high school).

 

To really test for intelligence, you'd need to decide what skills constitute intelligence, and then make a test for each of them. An overall score would be useless, but scores for each aspect might be of some use. You also have to contend with the fact that this assumes people all have equal ease taking a given test, which isn't true. Like learning, some people do best written, some people do best on an oral exam, and some people really need to be tested by having them perform a practical application of their knowledge.

[Guest Rob]

I like the idea of being able to measure intelligence, though I don't think IQs are entirely accurate. Those who are raised in certain conditions/cultures could have advantages depending on the questions, so the entire concept is kind-of inaccurate. It'd be cool if someone could somehow create a totally unbiased IQ test, though.

[muggiwhplar]

The generally-accepted definition is that intelligence is simply a measure of how quickly a person is capable of understanding a novel concept, adapting to it, and mastering it. The higher your IQ, the quicker you understand, adapt, and master things relative to how quickly everybody else in the world can do the same thing.

 

I'm technically "gifted" (138 IQ), but I never really understood what that meant for the longest time. When I learned that the most modern/up-to-date definition of intelligence and giftedness is the one I described above, it started to make more sense to me. In hindsight, I really have picked up on things much faster than my "normal" friends. A friend can be a competitive gamer, for example, and he'll teach me how to play and within a week or two I'll be giving him a run for his money. It's things like that which intelligence refers to-- adaptability, understanding, and mastery.

 

With that said, I don't see how one can accurately quantify such a quality, yet the IQ tests which are centered around logic and reasoning skills seem to have found a pretty strong correlation. Oh well. If I take a test and it labels me as "gifted," I'm not gonna argue with it :P

[enfield]

it only took till the fourth post for someone mentioned their IQ!

 

A friend can be a competitive gamer, for example, and he'll teach me how to play and within a week or two I'll be giving him a run for his money.

 

^ i vote this as the best way in which a high IQ is helpful :).

[Powerfrog]

The only thing an IQ score proves is how well you can complete an IQ test.

 

Which brings you onto the question: How DO you test intelligence? What even is the ideal for intelligence to set as the goal?

 

Knowledge and wisdom mixed in with practicality and speed, right? Well then you just have an IQ test, too specific to be practical, the alternative of testing them on everything ever is also impractical.

 

 

The thing I've always hated is how most tests are not scored on speed. You said something about a child being obsessive compulsive and thus taking longer to answer questions. This is a negative trait and would hinder the output of his knowledge/wisdom and effect his intelligence.

[enfield]

You said something about a child being obsessive compulsive and thus taking longer to answer questions. This is a negative trait and would hinder the output of his knowledge/wisdom and effect his intelligence.

 

why are you so sure it's a universally negative trait? in school and everything speed is valued and mistakes are okay and encouraged - but in many parts of the real world it is important to get things right the first time, and that takes contemplation and people who don't jump to conclusions too fast.

[ilovecuttingyews]

I've always thought of IQ to be essentially what others in the thread have said, logic and reasoning skills. That's why most tests won't ask you factual questions like 'What is the capital of Canada' but rather questions like 'What number comes next in the series 1 - 2 - 3 - ?'. As long as you have a basic understanding of the fundamental concepts (basic language, math, etc) everyone should be on equal knowledge grounds going into the test. Memorizing the periodic table isn't going to help you in IQ tests, only having a high intelligence.

 

While we're on the topic, does anyone know somewhere to take a real, solid IQ test? I've looked online but all I usually find are those cheap websites with corny names like 'freeiqtest4u'. On those (and I've done a fair number) I typically score in the top 1 or 2 percentile, but I'm curious to have a real test score.

[enfield]

the tests you take for college should give you a good idea of where you are. at least the ones in the U.S they have high ceilings, which allows differentiation within the top 1% (of course if you studied for it excessively than it might overestimate your intelligence).

[ilovecuttingyews]

the tests you take for college should give you a good idea of where you are. at least the ones in the U.S they have high ceilings, which allows differentiation within the top 1% (of course if you studied for it excessively than it might overestimate your intelligence).

In Canada (at least where I'm from) we don't have tests for post-secondary education. I'm sure if you have taken the test, they'll look at the score. But I was never required to take one, and I never heard of my friends needing to either (except the ones that went to school in the US). I was looking into taking the SATs for fun in grade 12, but the only time it was offered near me was durring baseball so I couldn't do it.

[enfield]

mm the SAT would have been good. I'm a bit surprised most colleges (universities?) in Canada don't require some sort of standardized test. In the U.S nearly every 4-year college requires either the ACT or SAT (though there are exceptions).

[sees_all1]

When I was about 15 years old, I was a bit obsessed with my IQ, looking for as many tests and any and every way I could validate myself. Later I came to realize that's just a number, and it really meant nothing to anyone.

About that same time, I started making friends with people that were sharper than me, and to hear a few of them brag about themselves made me realize what I dipshit I'd been.

[Assume Nothing]

I think you should have separated your posts into two parts - one that introduces us to the thread, and one that tells us how you feel about the topic.

 

On a more relevant note - I feel it's a terrible way to gauge intelligence. As you've stated, the very definition of intelligence is under debate - we're not even sure what we're measuring here.

 

Does it measure intelligence outside of the limitations of the IQ test? Does a person having more capacity but less speed equate to having a lower level of intelligence? If exam conditions are imposed, does that skew the results of those with particular learning or personality disorders? Could you really compare a 12 year old's purported 130IQ with a 30 year old's 130IQ? Does it measure current ability, or capacity for learning, or both?

 

It serves the role of diving the academic populace, but does it do that job well? Given the number of flaws in addition to the significance of these flaws, I don't feel that it's very optimal. It's a sub-par way of comparing each-other. I'd call it a pseudoscience.

[Hobgoblinpie]

Measuring IQ is beneficial to society.

 

We haven't perfected a method of doing it, and only creating techniques which approximate a persons' intelligence by giving them problems to solve. These problems are distinctly far away from 'What is the capital of...' and focus on deciding which thing should go next in a series.

 

This somewhat eliminates the 'needs to be learnt' aspect of your argument. Once you have a basic grasp of language and thought, patterns are somewhat innate. If you can't work out which goes next in the series by looking for differences and working out what the pattern is, then that's not the fault of your education system, it just means that the person doing the test is unable to mentally solve that particular problem.

 

Intelligence isn't just a measure of what you know, like others have said. It relies on speed and the ability to take in the information accurately. If you're slower to do it than other people, then that does, in my opinion, make you less intelligent. If someone need 4 seconds to work out the answer, and another person needs 12 (and this is for a question where 'general knowledge' is NOT a consideration), then the person who takes longer is less intelligent, by definition.

[obfuscator]

Like many of these tests and statistics, it's useful as a vague indicator rather than an accurate measurement.

[Assume Nothing]

If someone need 4 seconds to work out the answer, and another person needs 12 (and this is for a question where 'general knowledge' is NOT a consideration), then the person who takes longer is less intelligent, by definition.

 

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that someone has discalculia. They are able to do extremely complex sums, but they must be given additional time to make up for the slower performance. Should they be considered less intelligent than the person who could perform more quickly, but less accurately/correctly?

 

Given the scale of these types of psychological conditions, especially autism - it's difficult to really compare people based on scores. To reiterate from obfuscator - they provide a means of roughly gauging one's ability, but they are by no means accurate measurements that could be equated to something more quantifiable, such as mass or height.

[Powerfrog]

You said something about a child being obsessive compulsive and thus taking longer to answer questions. This is a negative trait and would hinder the output of his knowledge/wisdom and effect his intelligence.

 

why are you so sure it's a universally negative trait? in school and everything speed is valued and mistakes are okay and encouraged - but in many parts of the real world it is important to get things right the first time, and that takes contemplation and people who don't jump to conclusions too fast.

The point of my argument was that both of the students got the same score with the same mistakes. One did it fast and one did it slow. The faster one is better than the slower one.

 

You're making the mistake of thinking theres a balance. Some people are just faster and more accurate than other people. Their average well calculated speed is someone else's fast and reckless speed.

[Giordano]

If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

[The Dark Lord]

Intelligence isn't just a measure of what you know, like others have said. It relies on speed and the ability to take in the information accurately. If you're slower to do it than other people, then that does, in my opinion, make you less intelligent. If someone need 4 seconds to work out the answer, and another person needs 12 (and this is for a question where 'general knowledge' is NOT a consideration), then the person who takes longer is less intelligent, by definition.

 

What about factors such as anxiety confounding the results? If anxiety during the examination causes a person to perform a task in a longer period of time, does that really make them a moron?

 

Like many of these tests and statistics, it's useful as a vague indicator rather than an accurate measurement.

 

Yes, but it becomes very problematic because people believe it is an accurate measurement.

[Hobgoblinpie]

Intelligence isn't just a measure of what you know, like others have said. It relies on speed and the ability to take in the information accurately. If you're slower to do it than other people, then that does, in my opinion, make you less intelligent. If someone need 4 seconds to work out the answer, and another person needs 12 (and this is for a question where 'general knowledge' is NOT a consideration), then the person who takes longer is less intelligent, by definition.

 

What about factors such as anxiety confounding the results? If anxiety during the examination causes a person to perform a task in a longer period of time, does that really make them a moron?

 

Unfortunately there's no way to accurately compensate for anxiety. I could say I'm really nervous to the examiner, and say it's making me take longer, but can I or they really prove that?

 

I wouldn't say that it makes them a moron, just that IQ is not just a measure of how accurately someone can do tasks. I'm sure that a lot of people would get all the questions right, given a long enough period of time. The pressure to answer as quickly and correctly as possible would be off, but it'd be less of a challenge.

 

I'll admit that I didn't explain my point properly, but like Powerfrog said, if two people get the same results but one gets them faster, the person who got them faster should be considered more intelligent, due to the point of the test.

[Randox]

You could use a polygraph to test for anxiety/stress if you really wanted to, although how you would objectively compensate the scores would be a problem.

[anonymous1234]

I think some people have the notion that IQ tests can't be prepared for and therefore are unfair. This is the entire point! The test taker is faced with new challenges that have no encountered before and must then respond and adjust their thinking as quickly as possible. This ability to think both critically and quickly without prior knowledge is what is being tested. I know this from experience. The SAT is easy because you know exactly what will be asked and practice classes and tests are abundant. Also, reading and math are things that are practiced every day and therefore are comparatively easy to the IQ test.

 

Of course, on the other hand, one test can't be a perfect measure of all facets of intelligence, but the critical thinking is what is focused upon. Being slow isn't a flaw that the IQ test doesn't address, it's a flaw that the test takes advantage of. Same with anxiety. If being forced to think under pressure gives you anxiety and hurts your test results, it's for good reason. The best thinkers of our time were those that kept trucking along even through hardship and the infliction of massive amounts of stress and responsibility.

[Range_This11]

Why is speed a determinant in measuring how intelligent a person is? Some of the best thinkers of our time are those that take the time sit down and think through their reasoning and write about it.

[The Dark Lord]

Why is speed a determinant in measuring how intelligent a person is? Some of the best thinkers of our time are those that take the time sit down and think through their reasoning and write about it.

 

Because thinking is bad.