Is the extent to which a test yields a consistent, reproducible measure of performance.

Key Terms

*Intelligence Test - a method for assessing an individual's mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores.

*Mental Age - a measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance.

*Stanford Binet - the widely used American revision of Binet's original intelligence test.

*Intelligence Quotient - defined originally as the ratio of mental age (ma) to chronological age (ca) multiplied by 100 (thus, IQ = ma/ca × 100). On contemporary intelligence tests, the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100.

*Aptitude Tests - a test designed to predict a persons future performance; capacity to learn.

Achievement Tests - tests designed to assess what a person has learned.

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale - the WAIS is the most widely used intelligence test; contains verbal and performance (nonverbal) subtests.

Standardization - defining meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested standardization group.

Normal Curve - the symmetrical bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many physical and psychological attributes. Most scores fall near the average, and fewer and fewer scores lie near the extremes.

*Reliability - the extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, on alternate forms of the test, or on retesting.

*Validity - the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to.

*Content Validity - the extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest.

Criterion - the behavior (such as future college grades) that a test (such as the SAT) is designed to predict; thus, the measure used in defining whether the test has predictive validity.

Predictive Validity - The success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict; it is assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and the criterion behavior.

Intelligence - mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations.

*Factor Analysis - a statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie one's total score.

*g - a general intelligence factor that according to Spearman and others underlies specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test.

Savant Syndrome - a condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing.

Mental Retardation - a condition of limited mental ability, indicated by an intelligence score of 70 or below and difficulty in adapting to the demands of life; varies from mild to profound.

*Down Syndrome - a condition of retardation and associated physical disorders caused by an extra chromosome in one's genetic makeup.

Creativity - the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas.

Heritability - the proportion of variation among individuals that we can attribute to genes.

*Emotional Intelligence - the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions.

Stereotype Threat - a self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype.

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