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Articles
Multiple Intelligences
Intelligence Considered
Blog Notes
As long as a measure is reasonably stable, reliable, and makes sense, I think we are justified in using it to see what we can find. IQ, despite its imprecision and vagueness is all of these. Doesn't it make sense that if you can figure out little problems on a test that you might be a little smarter than someone who can't? It doesn't prove that you are smarter, of course. Nothing can ever prove that in the same way a thermometer proves something is hot. Why not use the measures that are available and track people's progress through life? We've done this with IQ and found that it is a better predictor of income than gender, parents' education, race, parents' income level, and essentially anything else you might want to think of. Whether IQ exists or not, it certainly is useful from a researcher's perspective.
Footnote:
In case it isn't already blindingly obvious, useful is not the same as precise. Julie's post mentions that she doubts her kids would do well on a standardized IQ test. From having read her blog for a while, I think her kids are sharp. I think home-schooled children in general will be poorly measured by IQ tests. However, despite this limitation IQ has been effective in predicting what happens within populations.
I have always been a proponent of standardized testing, even with its many downsides. Perhaps this is because it worked out well for me, but unfortunately I can?t think of a better way that doesn?t involve massive amounts of spending.
I think the problem, as always, is with time management. The problem is the same when you go in for a job interview. How are you to assess the quality of a potential candidate for any sort of program, job, etc, in a brief period of time? Education has the same problem as employers do, which is that gauging someone involves the use of some predefined criteria as to which there will inevitably be some who score better than others, thus giving a basis on which to choose someone.
The Blog Notes section is compiled information for invoking thought about IQ testing related subjects.
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