Cultural Bias In Intellectual Assessment

When one speaks of intelligence or how bright another person is, the often quoted figure is the IQ or intelligence quotient. It is the most often used standard of how smart a person is. This paper shall look at what intelligence tests measure, how the IQ tests measure intelligence and interrogate their history. It shall then apply the tests to school policy and hence evaluate their validity.

Sir Francis Galton (1869, 1883) quantified traits that were assumed to be correlated, and developed the first comprehensive test of intelligence. By the end of the 19th century, the foundation was laid for modern day intelligence testing (Wicket, 1998). In 1905, the French psychologist Alfred Binet published the first modern intelligence test to identify students who needed special help in coping with the school curriculum (Neiser, et al. 1996). Shortly thereafter in 1908 and 1911, Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon published revisions of the Binet intelligence test (Wicket). The mental age concept was adopted to express the results in adequate units. The concept is based on an individual’s performance in comparison to the average performance of individuals in a specific chronological age group (Kaplin, & Saccuzzo).

Labeling bias exists when a test claims to measure one thing but actually measures something else. Tests that claim to assess such traits as “aptitude” or “intelligence” imply that they are measuring something innate, given that many people assume that these traits are genetic. However, Jencks notes that “almost all psychologists now agree that while an individual’s score on an intelligence or aptitude test depends partly on his or her genetic makeup, it also reflects a multitude of environmental influences” (p. 56). Thus, such tests are racially biased estimates of the innate traits that most laypeople think these tests are purporting to evaluate. Fortunately, this bias can be eliminated by simply changing the names of what these tests claim to measure.

Standardized test have been a means measuring student performance. Some important questions that always come up regarding standardized test are what are the tests really measuring? Are they measuring a person’s intelligence? Their ability to perform well on standardized tests? Or just some random quantity of the person’s IQ? When examining the issues around which these tests are given and the content of the tests themselves, it becomes apparent that however useful the tests may be for standardizing a group’s intellectual ability, they are not a good indicator of intelligence.

For cultural factors, biased IQ test would be interconnected to substandard schools. These tests measure a student's school achievement. And if there are substandard schools, the students who are placed into the higher groups, the will do better than those who are placed in a lower group. And thus these IQ tests would lead to the deficiency theory, which suggests that 'the poor are

In the society of today, there are various educators who believe in assessment as proper method to measure the performance of a child in school as well as the overall achievement of a specific school system. The assessment may be presented in the form of verbal, written, or multiple choice, and it usually pertains to certain academic subjects in the school curriculum. Recently, many educators began to issue standardized tests to measure the intelligence of a common student body. (Rudner, 1989) These standardized tests were initially created to reveal the success in institutional school programs, and exhibit the abilities of students today. The standardized tests can reveal the strengths and weaknesses

Intelligence tests are inaccurate to measures true ability of a person because genes affect how a person responds to their surroundings, the tests cannot measure the person biological makeup or his true potential for being “smart”.

There is a relationship between intelligence and culture because intelligence is culturally shaped and defined and some cultures support and identify it as very vital in the context of social and ecological aspects. In the early years, there was a bias towards intelligence tests because they used English language and culture. The formation of Wesler Adult Intelligence Scale, Fourth Addition (WAIS,IV) in 2008 by David Wesler was meant to minimise the bias. According to Westen, Burton and Kowalski (2006), intelligence assists human beings to take control of their lives and it varies cross culturally because the power dynamics differ in each society and this leads to differences in behaviour and line of thinking. These authors describe intelligence as multifaceted, functional and can be defined by culture because it is universal and studying intelligence using different culture as a sample that can be used to question Western ideas about intelligence with some emphasis on the assessment of skills and abilities using culturally appropriate methods (Benson, 2003)

The Cultural Fair IQ test measures non-verbal intelligence, ordered in terms of difficulty, and based on image patterns while minimizing cultural and educational biases (Queendom, 2016). The testing site noted that this approach of the culture Fair IQ makes it stand apart from other tests of intelligence. My score on the test was “reasonably good”, indicating some basic ability. I personally did not see the test as a true measure of my intellectual ability.

There are a variety of topics that are interesting in life. This interest may then become a point of inquisition, where an individual may formulate a relationship between two variables, which may or may not influence each other. Next, a hypothesis is formed and tested. In this same manner, a school educator was interested in determining the potential relationship between grade point average (GPA) and IQ scores among ninth graders. The educator random sampled 30 ninth graders, ages 14 years old and administered the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition (WISC-IV). This writer will be expanding further on this topic and will formulate the null and alternative hypothesis, describe the four scales of measurement, describe whether if there is a correlation significant (positive, negative, or no correlation) enough between both variables, describe the strength of the relationship, describe what the results reveals about the hypothesis, and what conclusions can be drawn from the results.

One factor that may have a negative impact on ELLs’ school experience and academic achievement is unintended cultural bias on the part of their teacher. Bias is defined by Oxford Dictionaries as “Prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair.” I’ve always considered myself to be a person with few biases, however, one unknown bias was brought to my attention this week during the reading. Diaz-Rico and Weed (2010), used an example related to naming practices in other countries. After explaining about the importance of pronouncing and using students’ given names, the authors mentioned cultures that call adults by their profession instead of their

Cultural intelligence assessment will enable the individual to have certain information about himself. It is posited that cultural difference has a greater impact on business effectiveness than we think. That our cultural backgrounds really influence the way we think and act and the way we interpret each others contributions. Our success or failure in communication will depend on the extent at which we understand the different cultural background of the employees and create a fruitful collaboration in situations where cultural differences play a role. To achieve this, we need to act in an appropriate way in multicultural situations coupled with the ability to have an open mind which admits new information and this is curious about

Research and investigation into differential validity and differential prediction has been ongoing, especially as it relates to cognitive ability tests. This is due, in part, to the apparent validity differences inherent in cognitive ability tests between minority and nonminority groups. Test bias, differential validity, and differential prediction will be discussed, along with how each of these relate to cognitive ability tests. Test bias may occur in some situations, and this can sometimes lead to adverse impact for various subgroups. The concepts surrounding differential validity can also have an effect on ethical and global considerations for an organization, which will also be explored.

Over the years, there has been a great deal of concern on the performance of certain groups of people on tests that are said to be standardized. The result has been under-representation of some of these groups due to the differences in performance, a pattern that has persisted over time. Some scholars argue that these differences are due to cultural differences, while others point to cultural deficiencies and deprivation as possible explanations. However, whichever way they look at it, it is obvious that tests are culturally biased; they are unfair and discriminate against minority groups. I will explore this view further in this paper.

Many psychologists have rejected the fact that intelligence which is measured by IQ tests is very little determined by hereditary factors which is impossible to separate the inherited from the environmental influences (Kamin, 1977). Cullen et al has criticized the theory and believe upon research IQ is only uncertainly related to criminality (Cullen et al, 1997). Cullen had also