Describe the concepts of validity, reliability, and standardization and then discuss their relevance to intelligence testing.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

A good test of intelligence should be reliable, valid, and standardized. Validity refers to the extent to which a test measures what it is intended to measure. A valid measure is an accurate measure. If a test is supposed to measure intelligence, then it should measure intelligence, not some other characteristic, such as anxiety. If the scores on the new intelligence test correlate with important outcomes, such as job performance, then the test has high criterion validity. Reliability is the extent to which a test yields a consistent, reproducible measure of performance. Thus, if a person scored 100 on an IQ test the first time he or she takes it, he or she should have similar scores upon repeated testing. Standardization involves developing uniform procedures for administering and scoring a test, as well as creating norms or performance standards. Uniform testing procedures require that the testing environment be as similar as possible for all individuals. Norms are created by giving the test to a large group of individuals representative of the population for whom the test is intended. Norms tell us which scores are considered high, low, or average.