This accessible book outlines the key ingredients of psychological assessment and provides case studies to illustrate their application, making this an ideal textbook for courses on psychometrics or psychological assessment. The book covers the nature of assessment, basic components, how tests are made, underlying statistics, reliability and validity, assessment of intelligence, abilities and personality, non-psychometric approaches, as well as ethical and professional issues and modern developments. A final chapter explains how readers can construct their own tests. Wide-ranging case studies demonstrate the variety of contexts in which assessment is conducted. The author’s clarity of writing and use of practical examples throughout helps students apply these methods in practice with confidence as part of their studies on an array of courses.

Measuring Intelligence and Ability

Measuring intelligence and ability

Learning Objectives

By the end of this chapter you should be able to:

  • Discuss the concept of intelligence, how it might best be defined, and the differences between implicit and explicit theories.
  • Give an account of the different approaches to understanding and measuring human intelligence, and the major outcomes of these.
  • Outline the major issues concerning intelligence, including the nature-nurture debate, the problems raised by eugenics and the Flynn effect.
  • Distinguish between intelligence, ability and aptitude, and give an account of modern ability testing.

What is This Chapter about?

It's about something which has been much used and abused. That frightens people, possibly more so than late-night horror films. Despite fascination with it, people will run a mile if they think their intelligence is going ...

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