Determine the usefulness and the limitations of intelligence testing.?
Answer:
Strengths of IQ testing
1.Can predict future behavior, academic achievement, occupational performance, and are sensitive to the presence of neuropsychological deficit.
2.Measures a person’s present level of functioning, and are best for making short-term predictions.
3.The use of intelligence tests for personnel selection has demonstrated financial efficacy for organizations.
4.They provide valuable information about a person’s cognitive strengths and weaknesses.
5.The testing situation allows the examiner to make impressions about a client’s self-esteem, behavioral idiosyncrasies, anxiety, social skills, and motivation.
6.Provide clinicians, educators, and researchers with baseline measures for use in determining either the degree of change that has occurred in an individual over time or how an individual compares with other persons in a particular area or ability.
Weaknesses of IQ testing
1.Can be used to classify children into stereotyped categories, which limit their freedom to choose fields of study
2.Limited in predicting nontest or nonacademic activity, yet they are sometimes incorrectly used to make these inferences.
3.Long-term predictions are less accurate because there are many uncontrolled, influencing variables.
4.Inherent bias toward emphasizing convergent, analytical, and scientific mode of thought. May limit creative children because tests do not assess for nonacademically oriented intellectual abilities. People are capable of many more cognitive abilities than can be possibly measured on an intelligence test.
5.Misunderstanding and misuse. Not a measure of innate fixed ability or representative of all problem-solving situations. Tests tend to look at test results as absolute facts reflecting permanent characteristics in an individual.
6.They are not concerned with the underlying processes involved in problem solving. They focus on the final product or outcome rather than on the steps involved in reaching the outcome. The practitioner may apply labels quickly and easily, without attempting to examine the specific strengths and weaknesses that might make precise therapeutic interventions or knowledgeable recommendations possible.
7.Even short-term academic placements made solely on the basis of IQ have a high chance of failure because all the variables that may be crucial for success are not and cannot be measured by any intelligence test.
8.Limited usefulness in assessing minority groups with divergent cultural backgrounds. Minorities tend to be at a disadvantage because of deficiencies in motivation, lack of practice, lack of familiarity with culturally loaded items, and difficulties in establishing rapport.
A lot depends on how you define intelligence. For example, someone can be a very good mathematician, but have very poor ability to memorize a sequence of body movements that is required in a dance. That person can be considered to be intelligent in math, but stupid in dance. Current standard tests of intelligence measure only a subset of skills and qualities that a person might possess. Intelligence tests as we know them do not really measure intelligence per se, because the definition of intelligence is not set in stone. Thus, intelligence testing measures what intelligence testing measures. Nevertheless, the scores obtained on such tests can be useful. For example, those scores can determine a good cadidate for acceptance to a school, since the intelligent tests measure the same kind of constructs as are required to be successfull in most schools.
I hope that helps!
Yara
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