Physical Testing Should Be Accomplished Using Technology

One would assume that intelligence testing in the United States began with psychiatrists or government officials. It was actually a football coach who coached the University of South California at the start of the century. He

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).

Cohen, R. J., Swerdlik, M. E., & Sturman, E. D. (2013). Psychological testing and assessment: An introduction to tests and measurement (8th Ed.). Retrieved from The University of Phoenix eBook Collection database.

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.

In 1845 educational pioneer Horace Mann had an idea. Rather than administering annual oral exams, he suggested that Boston Public School students prove their knowledge through written exams (Gershon, 2015). According to Gallagher (2003), Mann's goal was to find and replicate the best teaching practices so that all students could receive an equal education. Unlike Mann's exam, many of the first widely adopted standardized school tests were designed to measure ability rather than achievement. Intelligence tests, and similar assessments that became popular in the early twentieth century, had a quality of scientific objectivity. The Army Alpha and Beta Tests, developed during World War I to group soldiers by their mental abilities, became a model for the schools (Gershon, 2015).

Testing has been used for centuries in many different ways, not just to test student intelligence levels. According to an article written in Time, the earliest form of a standardized test comes from China where government leaders would be tested on their knowledge of Confucius and poetry. The article continues with the inclusion of testing during the Industrial Revolution. The testing during this period took children who were not in school and measured their knowledge of subjects that students in schools learned. As time went on, more and more advances came to the testing scene. New products included a revised version of the test, called the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test, and professionals developed the test scanner by 1936. These inventions improved the time necessary to receive results from an IQ test. Today, tests, like the

This study set out to prove that when using technology for note-taking and assessing information in conjunction with each other there will be an increase in student performance. The data aligns with the initial hypothesis of the study and is backed by past studies findings, like Mogey’s study in 2007 and Russell and Haney’s study in 1997. The information in the article strongly aligns with the purpose of the article and does not give any superfluous information. The researchers also note threats to internal validity and the steps they took to remedy them, like using “two experimenters…as redundant quiz graders, each separately grading every participant’s quiz” (52) and having all handwritten notes converted to typed text to combat the bias that is common in grading. They also attempt to provide alternative explanations for “the results of studies demonstrating positive (e.g., Goldberg et al., 2003) or negative (e.g., MacCann et al., 2002) effects” (55), like the possibility that the location of the student had an effect on performance instead

Psychologists and managers may be surprised to discover that the origins of the world’s most widely used psychometric instrument lie in pre-modern systems of knowledge.

During WWI, mental testing popularized sorting people based on traits, IQ, and behaviors. These tests inadvertently also subjected women to an inferior status. Female psychologist researched

Throughout school, students are taught to handwrite notes. In college, many students transition from handwritten notes to electronic notes, such as on tablets and laptops. In the article “Attention Students: Put Your Laptops Away”, National Public Radio, or NPR, explains that although many students prefer taking notes on their electronics, handwritten notes have been proven to be much more effective despite technology.

In 1904, a French psychologist (Alfred Binet) created the first intelligence test in order to help the French Ministry of Education segregate children that may have difficulty learning in a regular classroom. At that time, he did not know that his test would be the basis for IQ tests administered over 100 years later. He has a Stanford University psychologist, Lewis Terman, to thank for expanding his work and creating the Stanford-Binet intelligence test that took root in the United States in 1916 and is still popular today. However, along with its popularity came criticism. Critics see the current version of the Stanford - Binet test and other intelligence tests, despite attempts to make them culturally fair, as limiting to individuals who are not from the major social norm. They claim that cultural bias in test questions is why certain races do not perform as well as others on the test.

CHAPTER ONE: Chapter One starts off by discussing how important tests are, why they are useful and how formulas have been created to minimize errors of the test. Self- knowledge is one of the main reasons why tests are useful because once you learn certain traits about yourself, you can apply that to your life and how you interact with others or in other situations, like work. People are constantly wanting to know more things about themselves, especially personality, so it is important that there are standardized tests that measure what they are supposed to accurately, so people can receive the information they need. Other uses of tests are for classification, screening, diagnosis, certification and placement. Each of these uses serves a purpose to help find

The first mental tests designed to be used for mass, group testing were developed by psychologists for the U.S. Army in 1917-1918. The group tests were modeled after intelligence tests designed for individual use in one-on-one assessment. In developing the mental tests, the psychologists subscribed to the position that one could be quite intelligent, but illiterate or not proficient in the English language. Based on this reasoning, two major tests were developed, the Army Alpha for literate groups, and the Army Beta for illiterates, low literates or non-English speaking (Yerkes, 1921). Both tests were based on the theoretical position that intelligence was an inherited trait, and the assumption was made that native intelligence was being

As young adults we have been tested many times over the years, whether it be by a parent, friend or life itself however, the most common of tests we receive are from school. Growing up we were taught to believe that A meant smart and F meant dumb. Time and time again this caused distress in students who were very smart but declared dumb by the education system. Contrary, students who were receiving higher marks are not necessarily the most intelligent. Eventually, people came to the realization that the marks received on tests in fact were not an accurate representation of ones intelligence but merely a showcase of their ability to memorize information. Firstly, the education system does not

There comes a time when we all come across a specific test such as school tests, driving test, or even as simple as food tasting test. However, there is a difference between regular tests and testing’s when referring to psychological testing. There are several different psychological tests that many psychiatrists, psychologists, and school counselors use to determine certain abilities, however each of the tests are used for a specific purpose. It is vital for the individuals to contain high knowledge of the tests before applying it to others.