Testing intelligence by standard tests has come under attack in the last 15 years. At least three criticisms of intelligence testing have been voiced. First, intelligence tests measure ability and give us an IQ score, but do not show the processes of thinking which determine that ability. Intelligence tests consist of problems to be solved and different persons may solve them by using different processes. One procedure of solving the problem ends in success, another procedure ends in failure.<\/p>\n
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It is important to know why a person failed the test and what processes were not used, rather than the information that the person has failed. Specifically, in the case of children’s intelligence testing, teachers or parents do not know why the child did poorly in the test and what processes the child did or did not use.<\/p>\n
It does not help a teacher to know that two children in the class have the same intelligence but one has great difficulty in reading the text and understanding it, whereas the other has no such problem. So the teacher asks\u2014 ‘Can I use the information about the children’s IQ in order to help the child with reading difficulties?’ No, the teacher cannot.<\/p>\n
The second criticism of intelligence testing is that the tests require a knowledge of school subjects\u2014those who are in poor schools have a poor education and hence do poorly in the tests. Many people criticize intelligence tests because they measure academic intelligence, not the kind of intelligence that is required if one is to succeed outside school. This is mentioned in the next section of the chapter. So the intelligence tests have limited usefulness.<\/p>\n
Third, the tests discriminate against disadvantaged children. Many of the test items can be best answered by children of middle-class and urban families because these children are most familiar with the items. For example, a test question is: “Divide the following into two groups: mango, potato, cauliflower, orange, grape.”<\/p>\n
A middle-class child is perhaps more familiar with all of these and their use than a lower-class child, thus the former has no problem in separating the words into ‘fruits’ and ‘vegetables’. The criticism, then, is that standard intelligence tests are biased in favor of the middle-class urban culture. Social disadvantage undoubtedly lowers intelligence scores of children (Das, 1998: 217-18).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"