Module I

Contents

	Task 1: Basics		Task 4: Abilities and race
	Task 2: Individual versus group tests		Task 5: Taking a culturally biased test
	Task 3: Who's intelligent		Task 6: Psychology testing and the law

Task 1: Basics

Read through Chapter 9 and go through the relevant section of your study guide. This is an important topic because it is one area where psychology has made an important contribution to the study of man. Those that intend to go in their study of psychology should certainly carefully read in this area.

By the time you entered university, it is highly likely that you had been exposed to a variety of tests which were applied in order to measure your mental abilities. It is not proposed to set any real test for you here, for their application and assessment is a complex matter. Further, many are copyrighted. Further, their use might compromise future validity should you have to the test in a real situation.

Read the chapter carefully, paying particular attention to the sections about reliability, validity, the predictive validity of tests and environmental and genetic influences. These four points persistently appear in the literature about psychological testing and you need to understand the differences between them. The report is due next week.

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Task 2: Individual versus group tests

The textbook points out that the majority of intelligence tests given today are group tests rather than individual tests. In an individual intelligence test, the examiner plays a vital role, because the test requires interaction between the examiner and the subject (Murphy & Davidshofer, 1991). An individual test requires a response to a person, not merely to a question. For this reason, examiners must have extensive training in test administration. On the other hand, group intelligence tests tend to be paper-and-pencil tests requiring little expertise on the part of the person who administers them; in some cases, group tests can be self-administered. Individual tests are likely to involve subjective judgments on the part of the examiner during scoring and evaluation of the subject's responses. Group tests are likely to be multiple-choice tests that can be machine-scored. Finally, the examiner in an individual test may also play an evaluative or diagnostic role while administering the test. As Murphy & Davidshofer (1991) point out, individual intelligence tests are not given routinely but rather with some specific purpose in mind. Thus the way the subject responds may be as important as the response itself. It is virtually impossible to understand the reasoning behind a person's multiple-choice response, but an individual test gives the examiner an in-depth opportunity to observe the individual taking the test.

Advantages of group tests (Kaplan & Saccuzzo, 1989):

• Group intelligence tests are quite cost-efficient. Many subjects can be given a test in the same amount of time it takes to administer one individual test.
• Group tests are objective and thus avoid the subjective judgments required in individual tests.
• When combined with other data, the information from group tests can be as useful as that obtained from individualised testing.
• Group tests have broader application than individual tests. Group tests are used in all levels of school; in business and industry; for research, screening and selection; and so on.

• Individual tests can provide much more information about the subject than a mere test score, because the examiner watches the subject's behaviour in a relatively standardised situation.
• The open-ended questions typically used in individual tests are thought to be more conducive to originality, creativity and deep thinking than are multiple-choice questions.

• Use results with caution: Test scores should not be used as the sole source of data about an individual. Make sure that the scores support other pieces of information. Avoid making long-term or global predictions on the basis of these scores.
• Be especially suspicious of low scores: Group testing makes the assumption that subjects understand the purpose of testing, are motivated to do well, and can read and understand the test. If one of these assumptions is not true, especially low scores can result.
• Consider wide discrepancies as a warning signal: When test scores do not match with other test scores, behaviour, or other data, emotional problems or stress may be indicated.
• When in doubt, refer: Those who administer group tests are often as well trained as individual test examiners. When any of the warning signals mentioned here occur, the tester may be wise to refer the subject for individualised testing.

Kaplan, R.M., & Saccuzzo, D.P. (1989). Psychological testing: Principles, applications and issues (2nd ed.). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Murphy, K.R., & Davidshofer, C.O. (1991). Psychological testing: Principles and applications (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

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Task 3: Who's intelligent

Read from Sternberg, R.J. (1986). Who's intelligent? People's conceptions of the nature of intelligence. The triarchic mind. New York, NY: Viking.

This reading is contained in the printed copy of your Workbook

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Task 4: Abilities and race

Read: Elliott, R. (1988). Intelligence, 12, 333-350. (This reading is contained in the printed copy of your Workbook.)

Underlinings in the text in no way indicate or reflect my attitude about this issue. The document had been marked by a prior user. Personally I have quite strong feelings about this: apart from the issue of ego centrism or psychopathology if people wish to mark documents that are stored for the use of all of us they should mark them in pencil and then erase them. Highbrown graffiti.

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Task 5: Taking a culturally biased test

There is a charge that many psychological tests are biased against racial, ethnic and cultural minorities. Minorities and nonminorities grow up in different environments that require different skills for survival. However, standardised tests typically test for skills and knowledge appropriate to a white, middle-class environment. According to Kaplan & Saccuzzo (1989), the practice of administering these tests to minorities "is analogous to testing a cat on a task designed to determine how well a rat is adapted to a rat's environment" (p.492).

Black sociologist Adrian Dove developed the Dove Counterbalance General Intelligence Test that has come to be known as the Chitling Test (from Newsweek, 1968). The Chitling Test is not standardised, does not have predictive validity and has only face validity (Kaplan & Saccuzzo, 1989). The Chitling Test does, however, discriminate between people who have been exposed to Black culture of the 1960s and those who have not. It is tempting to say that it discriminates between North American blacks and whites, but this would be an overgeneralisation. However, it is probably a biased test as far as many college students are concerned.

To give you a chance to see what it is like to take a biased test, you can answer a sample of the Chitling Test (see below). Even this exercise will fall short of its intended purpose, however, unless you can believe or accept that, in the real world, scores on this test could be used to determine their future in such important areas as education and jobs. Failing miserably on such a test would be a devastating experience that could create a lifetime of helplessness, despair and failure.

Answers to the Chitling Test:
1-c, 2-c, 3-c, 4-d, 5-c, 6-e, 7-c, 8-c, 9-c, 10-c, 11-a, 12-c, 13-d
 

Kaplan, R.M., & Saccuzzo, D.P. (1989). Psychological testing: Principles, applications and issues (2nd ed.). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Taking the Chitling Test. (1968, July 15). Newsweek, pp.51-52.

The Chitling Test
 

1. A "handkerchief head" is:

a. a cool cat
b. a porter
c. an Uncle Tom
d. a hoddi
e. a preacher
2. Which word is most out of place here?
a. splib
b. blood
c. grey
d. spook
e. black
3. A "gas head" is a person who has a:
a. fast-moving car
b. stable of "lace"
c. "process"
d. habit of stealing cars
e. long jail record for arson
4. "Down-home" (the South) today, for the average "soul brother" who is picking cotton from sunup until sundown, what is [in 1968] the average earning (take home) for one full day?
a. $.75
b. $1.65
c. $3.50
d. $5
e. $12
5. "Bo Diddley" is a:
a. game for children
b. down-home cheap wine
c. down-home singer
d. new dance
e. Moejoe call
6. If a pimp is uptight with a woman who gets state aid, what does he mean when he talks about "Mother's Day"?
a. second Sunday in May
b. third Sunday in June
c. first of every month
d. none of these
e. first and fifteenth of every month
7. "Hully Gully" came from:
a. East Oakland
b. Fillmore
c. Watts
d. Harlem
e. Motor City
8. If a man is called a "blood", then he is a:
a. fighter
b. Mexican-American
c. Negro
d. hungry hemophile
e. Redman or Indian
9. Cheap chitlings (not the kind you purchase at a frozen-food counter) will taste rubbery unless they are cooked long enough. How soon can you quit cooking them to eat and enjoy them?
a. 45 minutes
b. 2 hours
c. 24 hours
d. one week (on a low flame)
e. 1 hour
10. What are the "Dixie Hummingbirds"?
a. part of the KKK
b. a swamp disease
c. a modern gospel group
d. a Mississippi Negro paramilitary group
e. Deacons
11. If you throw the dice and seven is showing on the top, what is facing down?
a. seven
b. snake eyes
c. boxcars
d. little Joes
e. 11
12. "Jet" is:
a. an East Oakland motorcycle club
b. one of the gangs in "West Side Story"
c. a news and gossip magazine
d. a way of life for the very rich
13. T-Bone Walker got famous for playing what?
a. trombone
b. piano
c. "T-flute"
d. guitar
e. "Hambone"

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Task 6: Psychology testing and the law

Reading from Ellison, K.W., & Buckout, R. (1981). Psychology and criminal justice. New York, NY: Harper & Row.

This reading is contained in the printed copy of your Workbook.

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