pa2

• Report writing can be a time consuming burden. The challenge is to reduce writing time as much as possible without compromising the quality of the report.
• General mental ability


  All-round effectiveness in activities directed by thought
• General ability is not fixed, even though performance rankings are fairly consistent from one year to the next.
• Modern diagnostic tests do obtain useful information about distinct (though still complex) aspects of ability.
• If various intellectual tasks usually rank people in the same order, it is convenient to think of a general mental ability that enters all the tasks.
• General ability is not a single process. Like blood pressure, it is a surface indication of the way in which all parts of the organism are working together.
• There is no one thing that general ability tests measure.
• Intelligence tests


  Traditionally called "intelligence tests", they are designed for use in a wide variety of situations and are validated against relatively broad criteria, providing a single score such as an IQ to indicate the individual's general intellectual level
• Intelligence tests are often designated as tests of scholastic aptitude because they are validated against measures of academic achievement.
• General intelligence tests are commonly used for clinical testing, especially in the identification and classification of the mentally retarded.
• Individual tests


  Permit an appraisal of the qualities of the person's performance that is perhaps more important than the quantitative score, with time limits playing only a minor role
• Group tests


  Used primarily in the educational system, government service, industry, and the military services, they are designed for mass testing and have advantages like simultaneous administration, simplified examiner role, and more objective scoring
• Group tests characteristically provide better established norms than do individual tests due to the relative ease and rapidity of gathering data with group tests.
• Group tests employ multiple-choice items and arrange items into separately timed subtests, with the spiral-omnibus format used to reconcile the use of a single time limit with an arrangement permitting all examinees to try all types of items at successively increasing difficulty levels.
• Individual tests allow the examiner to get a better idea of how highly motivated the testee is, and to encourage the individual to put out a greater effort, with the possibility that a score on a group test may constitute an extreme underestimate of individual ability.
• Spiral-omnibus format


  Easiest items presented first, followed by next easiest and so on in a spiral of increasing difficulty
• Otis Self-Administering Tests of Mental Ability


  One of the earliest tests to introduce the spiral-omnibus format
• Otis-Lennon School Ability Test

  Follows the spiral-omnibus format from the fourth-grade level up
• Spiral-omnibus arrangement


  • Avoids the necessity of instructions in each item
  • Reduces the number of shifts in instructional set required of the examinees
• Individual tests


  Allow the examiner to get a better idea of how highly motivated the testee is, and to encourage the individual to put out a greater effort
• Individual tests


  Give a sounder indication of the mental capacities of those whose reading skills are not as well developed as their ability to think and reason
• Individual tests


  Afford an opportunity for qualitative study and observation
• Group tests


  • Examiner has much less opportunity to establish rapport, obtain cooperation, and maintain the interest of examinees
  • Any temporary condition of the examinee, such as illness, fatigue, worry, or anxiety, that may interfere with test performance is less readily detected
• Group tests have been criticised because of the restrictions imposed on the examinee's responses, particularly against multiple-choice items and standard item types like analogies, similarities, and classification
• Group tests provide little or no opportunity for direct observations of the examinee's behavior or for identifying the causes of atypical performance
• Traditional group testing lacks flexibility, as every testee is ordinarily tested on all items
• Available testing time could be more effectively utilised if each examinee concentrated on items appropriate to their ability level
• The testing of persons with highly dissimilar cultural backgrounds has received increasing attention since mid-century
• Cultural difference is likely to become cultural disadvantage when an individual must adjust to and compete within a culture or subculture other than that in which they were reared
• Cultural differences


  • May affect only responses on a particular test and thus reduce its validity for certain groups
  • May also influence the broader behavior domain that the test is designed to sample
• Culturally disadvantaged groups can be brought up to an effective functioning level within a relatively short period through suitable training
• Parameters along which cultures differ that have been traditionally controlled in cross-cultural tests

  • Language
  • Reading
  • Speed
  • Test content
• Hereditary and environmental factors operate jointly at all stages in the organism's development and their effects are inexplicably intertwined in the resulting behavior
• It is futile to try to devise a test that is free from cultural influences, as culture permeates nearly all environmental contacts
• Culture-common, culture-fair, and cross-cultural tests

  Aim to construct tests that presuppose only experiences that are common to different cultures, rather than being "culture-free"
• No single test can be universally applicable or equally fair to all cultures
• Every test tends to favor persons from the culture in which it was developed
• Persons reared in the majority American culture will generally excel on tests developed within that culture, while Americans would probably appear deficient on tests prepared within other cultures
• Approaches to cross-cultural testing

  1. Choose items common to many cultures and validate the resulting test against local criteria in many different cultures

  2. Make up a test within one culture and administer it to individuals with different cultural backgrounds, to predict a local criterion within that particular culture

  3. Combine features from the first two approaches
• Culture-fair tests have been constructed to respond to needs created by varied cultural and linguistic