Ability Test


France Tests of Mental Ability


As has been noted, the various Winchester scales consist in part have nonverbal or performance items. This may in part reflect a particular need in the field of mental testing for nonverbal adequately by purely verbal tests—the deaf, on-English spoken groups, illiterates, and the educationally deficient. To serve these and other needs, various nonverbal or performance tests were constructed. These have been used primarily to supplement other tests of intelligence and to provide a more nearly adequate appraisal of the individual’s capabilities.

Performance tests, therefore, have certain values in clinical work. They can be applied in cases where various languages handicaps or deficiencies would distort findings from verbal tests. In addition to the specific groups already referrer to, performance test have been utilized with individuals with speech defects and with unusually shy or withdrawn children. In such cases speech defects and with unusually shy or withdrawn children. In such cases the nonverbal nature of the situation may result in less stress or anxiety on the part of the individual to be examined then might be the case with exclusively verbal tests. Furthermore, when low score are obtained on tests such as the revised Stanford-Bidet, performance tests will help to clarify or support the climatic diagnosis of the patient. For example, if a subject suspected of possible mental deficiency with the revised Stanford-Bidet should receive a much higher score on a performance test, factors other than intelligence would have to be investigated as possible cause of the law score obtained previously. If, on the other hand, the score obtained from performance tests agree closely with other test findings, the original diagnostic impression receives confirmation.

All Known performances tests however correlate positive with verbal tests of intelligence. Although the coefficients of correlation very for different tests, the most frequent values obtained range from .50 to .75. While collocations of such magnitude indicate that the two types of tests in great part are measuring similar intellectual functions, they also suggest that the two tests tap somewhat different abilities. Performance tests, therefore, are not considered as alternatives or substitutes for a test like the Stanford-Bidet Scale and usually will be administered in addition to it.

With the advent of the Winchester scale, it appears that the use of individual performance tests has diminished somewhat. However they still have a role as aids in the clinical evaluation of selected cases. Among the best known of these tests are the Grace Arthur scale and the Pinter Patterson scale. From I of the former consists of nine tests while from 11 consists of five tests. The Pinter-Patterson scale consists of fifteen separate performance tests. Many of the same types of tests are used in both scale, and some of them are also included in the Winchester scales.e.g; block design, object assembly and picture completion.
Mention can also be made of a somewhat unusual test, which is generally included in this category of tests. This is the Porte’s Maze Test, which has a reasonably long history in psychology. The test consists of graded paper mazes, which the subject traces with a pencil. The subject is not allowed to lift the pencil, and thus careful appraisal and planning are emphasized. When an error occurs, the subject is given a second trial. How well the subject scores on the test depends on the number of trails and errors recorded. The test is considered by Porte’s to be a measure of the individual’s ability to plan and to use foresight. The test has been used with a wide variety of subjects, including primitive people, mental defective, illiterates, criminals, delinquents, brain-damaged patients, and patients given ataractic drugs. It appears that the test may be particularly sensitive to certain kinds of drug effects.

GROUP TESTS OF INTELLIGENCE:


In addition to individual tests of intelligence, tests, which can be given to large group of individuals at one time, have also been developed and enjoy great popularity. Such tests obviously save much time and are much more economical to administer than individual tests are. They require tests training on the part of the examiner to administer a can be scored very quickly by machines. Today computers can even analyze them.

Group test of intelligence are undoubtedly the most widely used mental tests in the field of education and are used at all levels ranging from the elementary school to the graduate school. In recent years, the mental tests used at the higher education levels have more commonly been referred to as academic or scholastic aptitude tests. This in some ways it perhaps a better characterizations of these mental test since they are being used to help predict future academic success. Thus, we have a number of tests, which have been developed for ascertaining college aptitudes and general suitability for graduate school.

As already indicated, group tests of intelligence have near. Developed for individuals at practically all grade levels, and we shall now refer to a few representative tests at various age and grade levels. Some of these tests cover a wide age range and have specific forms for the primary grades, for the intermediate grads. And for the secondary school grades. Examples of such tests are they Pintner General Ability tests, the Otis Quick Scoring Mental Ability Tests. The Kuhlman Anderson intelligence tests the Lorge-Thorndike intelligence tests. And the California test of mental maturity. In they Pinter series, for example, the Pintner Cunningham primary test is designed primarily for children in kindergarten, the first grade and the first half of the second grade. Such tests obviously cannot rely on the ability of subjects in this age range to be able to read, and thus they are frequently referred to as non verbal tests Generally the instruction are given orally with sample items to acquaint the subjects with the test procedures to be followed. Most items are pictorial in type and the subject this told to perform a specific task mark the thing that go together mark the prettiest drawing and mark the missing part.
The tests for the intermediate and higher levels usually assume some ability to read on the part of the subjects taking the test and, therefore, tend to be more verbal. Generally, verbal and quantitative item are found in many if not most scales although their are individuals variations. The lorge-Thordnide tests, however contain a nonverbal battery, which can be used when the test may be deemed more appropriate. In fact, Spanish directions are also available for the nonverbal battery in terms of use4 with Spanish speaking population in our country. The verbal and nonverbal scores. However ten to correlate about 70.

In addition to the test already mentioned. There are a number of others, which have been developed for use with high school students or adults without college education. One of the better-known tests of this type, which ha a rather long history is the Terman McNamara test of Mental Ability. The Terming McNamara is again primarily a verbal test as are the Henson Nelson test of mental ability although the specific time limits for the various group tests of intelligence very, most of them appear to require around forty five minutes to an hour. The format of the different test also varies. Some may have a single time limit and the subject tries to complete as many items as possible within that time limit. Other may be divided into subunits consisting of similar types of item with separate time limits in some instances the individuals test form is used for recording responses while in other instances special answer sheet and pencils for machine scoring are used.

In terms of tests used in helping to select students for admission to graduate school the too most widely used are the miller analogies test and the Graduate record examination. The Millar analogies test consists of rather difficult analogies item with a fifty-minted time limit. It is administrated at certain selected centers and many graduate school require that prospective students take the test prior to tithe time that their application are considered for admission to graduate school .The graduate record differs in that it provider verbal an quantitative scores. Comparable to those already mentions for other intelligence test, and lasso provides for evaluation of the student achievement unselected academic subject areas.

The Davis eells games designed to; be an unbiased test for Low class children in American society, is a pictorial test which is administered orally various types of problem are presented, and the subject is asked to give his solution, the test is relatively long a hard to administer in some ways it is difficult to evaluate the test since the author do not appear to be concerned with conventional validating criteria. However as Anastasia points out the result of almost thirty studies indicate that the test has not correlated as highly with achievement test and teacher grades as conventional intelligible tests have and that lower class children perform as poorly on this test as on the more traditional tests. It would appear that true culture fair test are hard to come by and theta certain kinds of experience as well as ability may be required for good test performance.

TESTS OF SPECIAL OR DIFFERENTIAL MENTAL ABILITIES



As mentioned previously, there have been some individuals in the field of intelligence testing who take the view that intelligence is made up of number of separate mental abilities. Consequently, if one is to make an adequate appraisal of intellectual ability from this point of view, one needs tests, which measure these separate factors of intelligence. Through the use of methods such as factor analysis one can a supposedly derive the more basic components underlying our more global test of intelligence. Thus, from a wide variety of tests items one can ultimately derive a limited number of basic clustering of items, which can be viewed as representing primary mental abilities. One of the leading exponents of this view was thrust one, who developed several tests of primary mental abilities, including the Chicago tests of primary mental Abilities. For ages eleven to seventeen and the SRA Primary Mental abilities for ages five to seventeen. The latter provides separate scores for variable number abilities or factors. Among the factors most frequently identified have been; spatial, perceptual Numerical verbal comprehension memory, word fluency and reasoning.

The problem of whether intelligence consists mainly of basic general factor with accompanying secondary factors of more specific nature or whether they primary mental abilities or factors are indeed primary and a general factor is secondary depend sin part upon the methods and interpretations of the investigators involved. This kind of problem, as indicated previously, is a difficult one to resolve. And it may be better to look at a more empirical aspect of the problem.

According to McNamara the predictive ability factored special ability better then tests of general intelligence and this view appears to be supported by the bulk of the data at hand Thorndale and Hagen. There has also been some emphasis on the facts that a general factor is more obvious in studies of young children and that a greater degree of differentiation of mental abilities emerges in adolescence and adulthood. From this point of view, general intelligence develops first and become more highly differentiated with maturation a development, however these findings are also open to other interpretations.

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