IQ tests not accurate measure of a person’s intelligence

 

We should remind ourselves again that our measurement of Intelligence is not all that precise and accurate. This is only a rough assessment. The intelligence quotient (IQ), is normally based on the person’s interaction with the environment and they measure inborn cleverness exclusively. IQs do change in the course of development especially from birth through six years of age. Even at age six, significant changes can occur. This will qualify IQ test as development test rather than intelligence test. Intelligence test does not measure all the required information about an individual. Most IQ tests do not measure the whole abilities spectrums that are connected to intellectual behavior. Some stress verbal and nonverbal intelligence but do not adequately measure other areas such as mechanism skills, creativity and social intelligence (Furred, 2004). IQs are not always inter-changeable especially when the standard deviations of the test are different.

No battery of tests can give us a complete picture of any person. A battery can only illuminate various areas of functioning. A battery of test can tell us everything that we need to know in making judgments about a person’s competence. Intelligence is a very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learning quickly and learn from experience. This is far much beyond the scope of IQ test and so its weakness. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or descriptive of test-taking smarts (Petersen, & Waddell, 2000). Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surrounding.

One question that is always asked is whether IQ remains constant or whether it fluctuates. We cannot give a definite answer to this question unless under self-perception. If the test has been properly constructed, administered and scored the IQ should remain more or less constant. But, ideal conditions rarely exist. Sometimes the subject may fail to cooperate and this would be reflected in his performance. The examiner may be a bit too strict or too lenient on a certain day in scoring some of the subject’s definition, for example, in vocabulary test. The IQ is expected to shift up or down a few points when the subject is retested before any guanine change in intelligence has time to occur. The direction, however, cannot be determined easily (Hayman & Shaw, 2009). Greater fluctuations are found in bright than dull children and in young than older children. An allowance of from five to ten that can be allowed is still too large and this might interfere with the accuracy and data relevancy.

In general, the individual’s IQ remains fairly though not absolutely constant and the bright child becomes the intelligent adult. Thus IQ obtained in childhood has considerable predictive value. If a child at the age of six has an MA of eight and an IQ therefore, of 133, we can expect that probably, though not certainly, his MA at the age of ten will be about 13 years and would continue to remain so. Are we to conclude then that one’s intelligence is completely determined by heredity and not affected by environmental influences? We must assume that under normal circumstances an individual continues to live under a stimulating environment during the formative years. Hence, the IQ determined in Infancy remains unchanged. In exceptional circumstances when a child is shifted from an impoverished environment to a better stimulating atmosphere, one could expect considerable positive change in Intelligence quotient (Fisher, 2008). The reverse also could happen when a child is displaced from a stimulating atmosphere to an impoverished condition. Therefore, on could expect a decisive influence of environment upon intelligence.

How do we measure the intelligence of adults beyond the adolescent stage? We know that Binet’s tests had test-items up to the age of 15 or 16. He assumed that mental growth like physical growth tapers off in adolescence and reaches its adult level around the age of sixteen. This does not mean that an adult above twenty years is intellectually the same as the boy of 16. Their innate capacity may be the same, but their actual achievement will vary because of experience and learning. At this stage, the IQ test looses its meaning as it will not give accurate results between a child of age 16 and an adult of 20 years (French, 2005).

The IQ of a child tells something about his race of mental development. Whether the child has reached a certain level of achievement (the child’s MA) and it has taken him a certain number of years (the child’s CA) to reach the level. In the case of an adult, however, the IQ cannot have this clear meaning and so the weakness of IQ tests in measuring the child’s intelligence.  The test score or MA gives us the level of the child’s achievement, but the child’s CA does not tell how many years of growth the child required to reach the level. In short, in my reason IQ test is never the best method to use measuring the child’s intelligence.

 

 

References

Fisher, P (2008). Wellbeing and empowerment: the importance of recognition sociology of Health and Illness. 30 (4): 583-598.

French, K. (2005). Gender, Culture and Child development. New York. Rutledge publishers.

Furred, F. (2004). Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age. London. Rutledge Publishers.

Hayman, B. and Shaw, M. (2009). Risk, Safety and Clinical Practice: Health Care Through the Lens of Risk. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Petersen, A., and Waddell, C. (2000). Health Matters: Sociology of Illness, Prevention and Care and child development. London. Open University Press.

 

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