A Guide to Child Nonverbal Iq Measures

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Validity, briefly, refers to how well a test measures what it says it does. The following are five types of validity developmental trends, correlation with similar tests, factor analyses, group comparisons and predictive ability. I feel as though, in a simple way, validity tells you if the hammer is the right tool to fix a chair, and reliability tells you how good a hammer you have. For examples if I was to do a test of intelligence based on eye color blue eyed people are more intelligent than brown eyed people would certainly be reliable, because eye color doesn't change, but it would not be very valid, because IQ and eye color have little to do with each other. Moreover, these are reasons researchers study different types of validity and reliability. The testing methods should include both reliability and validity as well as remain consistent and specific.

According to the authors of the article “the ultimate responsibility for appropriate test use and interpretation” predominately lie with the test user. (American Educational Research Association et al., 1999, p.111) There are three reflections discussed in the article to director the selection of a nonverbal IQ measure. The measure should be psychometrically sound as previously discussed by psychometricians. Meaning the test should include the measurement of attitudes, personality traits, and educational measurement. According to DeThorne, L. & Schafer, B. (2004) “The second consideration for test selection is potential special needs of the population or individual being evaluated.” In general, nonverbal assessments attempt to remove language barriers in the estimation of a student's intellectual aptitude. I feel that this is especially helpful in assessing students without speech or who have limited language ability. The last factor is the purpose of assessment. The point of assessment is often diagnosis or classification. This is the act of placing the client in a strictly or loosely defined category of people. In my opinion this should allow the psychometricians to quickly understand what they are like in general, and to assess the presence of other relevant characteristics based upon people similar to them.

In closing, I felt that this article of research is relevant to theory and practice in intelligence and shows that the field is active and dynamic. Intelligence has been a useful concept for planning education and I feel that it is a difficult concept to define. Furthermore, it should be evident that intelligence researchers of the 21st century are addressing a broader, more complete concept of intelligence than was evident in the previous century.

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