The Concept of Intelligence and Testing for it

Intelligence/Personality Tests

The concept of intelligence and the practice (and practicality) of testing for intelligence has been one of the more controversial areas of psychology and psychometrics since the first tests were developed and administered a century ago. Far from there being a consensus in the scientific community on exactly what makes up intelligence, the list of characteristics that comprise intelligence has instead been a matter of extreme and ongoing debate. Measuring intelligence in individuals has found an even greater share of disagreement and controversy. Even when researchers are able to agree on what aspects should be measured to develop an accurate picture of intelligence, the methods proposed and implemented for testing these areas have often been widely disputed. The controversy surrounding intelligence testing reached new heights in the era of cultural diversity, as it became clear that the standard intelligence tests in use for the better part of the twentieth century had an inherent bias in favor of white, Euro-centric thinking, to the detriment of other cultural and ethnic backgrounds.

Nonetheless, there are several standard working definitions of intelligence that while not perfect by any stretch of the imagination have still proven consistent and reliable enough to produce tests that measure intelligence with some accuracy. One widely used definition of intelligence from the American Psychological Association includes the ability to understand complex thoughts, adapt to environments, learn from experience, and engage in various types of reasoning. This definition makes it incredibly clear that intelligence is not a simple phenomenon such as how "smart" someone is, but rather there is a wide and varied set of considerations that must be taken into account in order to arrive at an idea of "true" intelligence -- a feat which the American Psychological Association says has still not yet occurred.

According to many other authorities, even the above definition is not inclusive enough to determine true intelligence, even if things such as cultural bias were not an issue. Creativity is one of the most common and most disputed additions to definitions of intelligence. Not only is the concept of creativity at least as difficult to define as intelligence, but measuring creativity through the use of standardized test is entirely antithetical to the idea of creativity. Other problems with measurements of intelligence -- other than simple cultural, gender, and even personal differences in what should be perceived as necessary constituent parts of intelligence -- include how to design a test that does not depend on any pre-existing knowledge, or knowledge of a certain language. These can often be counted as part of cultural barriers to fair and accurate testing, but at times these problems appear even within a single culture.

Despite these difficulties, several tests purported to measure intelligence have existed for the better part of a century, and continued adjustment and redefinition of intelligence and the tests themselves has led to a more and more accurate picture of intelligence. Among the first of these tests to be developed was the Stanford-Binet test of an individual's intelligence quotient, or IQ. Other tests have largely followed the same model, containing a series of questions that involve verbal ability, mathematical reasoning, and patter recognition among other common areas of intelligence. There are also less scientific intelligence tests that can be better at measuring certain types of creative thinking and social proficiency, and many examples of these tests can be found online.

The first intelligence test that I took online was a thirty question timed test modeled on the Stanford-Binet IQ tests. This test can be found at IntelligenceTest.com (http://www.intelligencetest.com/test). This test was much more closely aligned with the American Psychological Association's definition of intelligence, measuring pattern recognition, spatial awareness, mathematical reasoning, and verbal ability. Basically, the view of intelligence measured in this test (and defined by the American Psychological Association) relates to how effectively and efficiently an individual is able to interact with, learn from, and manipulate the external world (including such intangible things as information). Many would point out that creativity is also a large part of this ability, but the test did not really measure for this. At the same time, the test did ot set out to measure creativity, so its omission in no way affects the test's reliability, though it may cast some doubt on its validity.

The validity of this test is as much in question as the definition of intelligence, and for the same reasons. Because creativity isn't measured, it could reasonably be argued that this test does not measure true intelligence, even when intelligence is defined as the ability to efficiently interact with the world. Creative intelligence is immensely important in this regard, therefore the test may be invalid. As far as reliability, the website on which this test appears claims that is has been ninety-five percent accurate with its results when compared to professional intelligence tests. That being said, the reliability of the test is somewhat hampered by its brevity; with only thirty questions, adjustments for time taken to complete the test and age of the taker have much bigger effects then they would on longer tests. The test does have a very standard method of question delivery and response marking, and the bias level is fairly low (though it does depend on certain piece of knowledge within the English language).

The second intelligence test I found online is a much poorer example of "science." Found at www.begent.org/intelquiz.htm, this test consists of questions that are purposefully deceptive, such as "how many animals of each sex did Moses bring aboard the ark?" (the answer is zero; Noah had an ark, not Moses). The presentation of the test is not joking, however, and it does actually measure verbal ability and a certain type creative thinking quite well. Thus, this test is much closer to definitions of intelligence that include creativity than it is to the standard definition accepted and utilized by the majority of the scientific community which emphasize only the culturally approved measures of intelligence like mathematical reasoning.

This status, more than the irreverence many of the questions seem to contain, is what casts real doubt on the test's validity. The consensus in the scientific community seems to be that this test does not accurately measure intelligence, and though it goes about this measurement with a consciously different perspective than the bulk of the scientific community such consensus is the best measure of validity in such disputed areas as intelligence defining and testing. The reliability of the test is even more impaired by brevity than the first test mentioned. With only ten questions, it is only a third of the length of the other test, and its scores are subject to a great deal of change depending on one's familiarity with any of the riddle-like questions. In addition, there is a heavy cultural bias in the test. Questions such as the Moses-ark one quoted above depend on knowledge of the Judeo-Christian Bible, and other questions equally depend on knowledge of Western culture. Though the test is fun and good at getting one to "think outside the box," it is not a good scientific instrument.