Aptitude Assessment

Academic Aptitudes

Most gifted and talented programs require assessments for measuring academic aptitude. One of the major strengths of intelligence tests is their ability to predict academic success; therefore, in gifted education programs, they are used as aptitude tests. The two main assessments in use are the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC). The Stanford-Binet is currently in its fifth edition and assesses five areas: fluid reasoning, knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial processing, and working memory. The WISC is currently in its fourth edition, and measures four main areas: verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, processing speed, and working memory. Both assessments report scores for each area while also having a formula for an overall intelligence quotient (IQ) score.

Most gifted programs have a minimum score on the assessments for admittance into a program. For those who believe that only one kind of aptitude [Page 43]exists, an overall academic aptitude, the total score on the assessments suffices (e.g., an IQ score of 145 and above). For those who believe that many kinds of aptitudes exist, the other areas within each assessment are also used to point out students' strengths, such as quantitative reasoning, which is related to an aptitude for mathematics. For those who want other measures to define academic aptitude, other evidence is often gathered, such as parental recommendation, teacher recommendation, students' grades, and, sometimes, student portfolios. Collectively, these pieces of evidence can portray students' aptitudes for academic success in ways a single assessment cannot. And, depending on how the gifted and talented programs are structured, students' aptitudes for different subjects may place them in different gifted and talented education programs that can nurture those aptitudes in which they demonstrate the most strength.

College admissions also depend to some degree upon aptitude testing. The two major tests, the ACT and the SAT, however, differ in that the ACT is a measure of achievement—that is, what students have already learned in school, and the SAT claims to be an aptitude test, a measure of basic verbal and mathematical reasoning abilities. This distinction is somewhat controversial, given that both tests probably require both achievement of a knowledge base as well as aptitudes to reason well.

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