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The Theory Of Measuring Intelligence

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Introduction
Since childhood I can remember how the term “IQ” could make or break a person’s dignity and credibility all in one. Through the years a line has been drawn that to this day categorizes a person’s abilities both mentally and physically. Statements like “He is street smart, not book smart” have been used and overused in today’s society. Although research and new learning strategies have been in development since the 1980s, much of society still sees intelligence in this limited manner. Though the course of this paper we will look at theories for measuring intelligence. We will also explore how memory plays a major role in developing intelligence and the effect these factors have on learning.
Intellectual Development …show more content…

IQ and You
Intelligence is defined as “the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations. Other definitions include, “the skilled use of reason” and “the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one 's environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria (Hacker, 2011).” One might ask, “How can one assume to measure intelligence with such a vague description of what intelligence is?” Doesn’t everyone have the ability to think and reason? The answer comes in the latter part of the definition where a person needs to apply the knowledge learned. The way I see it, intelligence applies to people in the following ways. One is the ability to learn new things; another is the ability to think things through and the last is to apply learned content to life. The problem with trying to measure intelligence is that it can never really be fully measured. If the ability to apply learned knowledge is absent a real measurement cannot be achieved. This is where the theory of I.Q. tests came into play. The letters I.Q. simply stand for intelligence quotient, which is a phrase coined by Lewis Terman after his associate and him modified the original intelligence test developed by Binet and Simon (Boyd & Bee, 2012). The theory behind the IQ test was to find a way to measure the child’s mental development based on the difference

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