Creativity and Intelligence in Applied Educational Psychology - Reflection 4

Module 4 – Intelligence Introduction and Testing

1. Pioneers (Galton, Spearman, Binet, Guilford, Thurstone)
2. Thurstone compared to Gardner’s multiple intelligence model, and Cattell’s model
3. Intelligence tests: Stanford-Binet, Wechsler’s Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) & Children (WCIS), Kaufman’s Brief Intel Test (K-BIT), Adolescent & Adults Intel Test (KAIT), Assessment Batter for Children (K-ABC) and Raven’s Progressive Matrices
4. What is being measured by each, and what is the scale

Having grown up in an era during which “learning styles” were the new fad in education, I remember hearing about different kinds of intelligence without understanding what that meant, exactly. This was an approach to student management in the classroom that would influence the types of groups that were created by teachers for shared assignments – mixing sometimes, while other times grouping by similar type. In my experience, the types discussed were applied inconsistently between classrooms, not applicable in all classrooms, and different teachers had different opinions about a student’s type. While this concept had always seemed ambiguous, there was a reasonableness to the idea that minimized skepticism. The brief section called “Multiple Intelligences” in the book by Stuart Ritchie helped me understand the concept, as well as doubt the authenticity of the idea. Intuitively, my experience has been that individuals with high intelligence tended to be top performers in most subjects, if not all of them.  The contrary was also true. Based on this first finding, the concept is truly an educational fad that has not been supported with reliable evidence.

This module’s deep dive into the components of intelligence testing provided many insights into the mental models used to evaluate intelligence based on multi-part sub-tests that analyze and measure specific skills that contribute to that broad definition provided at the start of the book – our understanding is currently strong enough to identify differences in learned knowledge and innate ability to problem solve. Like Aristotle’s Five Wits, the sub-divisions of intelligence being measured by tests tends to group into 5-7 categories that can be allocated to one of those two groups in the definition; Gc and Gf for learned and innate mental ability that can be measured, my second finding. The Positive Manifold’s high correlation was impressive. Having studied correlation in a prior Educational Psychology class focused on statistics, during which I learned the challenge with finding strong correlation, the high correlation between multiple samples provides strong evidence to support the data produced by general intelligence testing. This may be the result of the measurements relying too heavily on the same competencies being tested (generally 5-7 in any test, and often rolling up to two primary categories) or it may be what was suggested: that IQ testing is reliable over time. As we explore the types of testing in more detail during the upcoming modules, I will be paying close attention to this question. In this module, Guilford was the one example of a different approach with many more categories being tested (up to 120 factors!) though without information about his approach’s correlation to other tests.
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In the past, I have worked on “cohort analysis” for business needs – generally to segment groups of employees, customers, or vendors – so I was somewhat skeptical of a scoring system that factored test result by age to create the useful result. Another finding was Wechsler’s test, the most widely used according to the lecture notes, which made a sensible adjustment to that scoring factor. By dividing the score by the expected score based on the test-taker’s age, the chronological element within the grading scale becomes embedded neatly in the result, simplifying comparisons over time and across cohorts; an ingenious solution to reduce effort and waste in the scoring process.