Usefulness of IQ tests
 

Hello

I'm new to Newsgroups but what I've seen so far is pretty impressive.
Just a comment on the validity or otherwisew of IQ tests.

As other contributors have stated, IQ tests are not necessarily an
indicator of future success. But they are useful in that they can
give some idea of a person's mental abilities and potential and this
can be a guide for the teacher when devising learning programmes and
also the style of teaching.

As a former teacher of maths I am aware of the fact that students
learn in different ways. Liam Hudson has written books detailing the
concepts of 'Divergent' and 'Convergent' thinking. A convergent
thinker would probably have the potential to be a good math student
but a divergent thinker less so.
Who is to say that a convergent thinker is superior to a divergent
thinker? (A divergent thinker is likely to be more creative than than
a convergent thinker.
A divergent thinker could probably write a longer list than a
convergent thinker if asked to write down as many uses as possible for
a brick!)

Conventional IQ tests tend to be heavily biased towards convergent
thinking styles thus the divergent thinker is automatically at a
disadvantage with such tests.

John P

Usefulness of IQ tests
 

"Ignoramus3100" wrote in message
...
Where are the IQ tests useful?

For one thing, in deciding what education path to choose. Should you
go major in physics or, say, "business communication".

No, people in business communnication needs lots of smarts, not necessarily
the same type of smarts that a physics major needs. IQ is not a useful tool
to determine education paths.

IQ is a tool, not a religion.

Not a great tool. The only thing it measures well is something that is
called "IQ" which is the score you get on an IQ test. It doesn't really
measure intellegence. IQ has a lot of cultural bias built in. And, kids and
adults will perform differently on the tests depending on how they feel, how
hot the room is, and how much education they have.

It is used to help schools place children in appropriate classes (e.g.,
regular, special education, either remidial or gifted), but even here there
are major issues about eh accuracy of the tests and the meaning of the
results. For this, I think it may be a valid use, but certainly it is wrong
to use IQ as the only measure to determine the place for a particular child.

Jeff