intelligence test
a method for assessing an individual's mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores
achievement test
a test designed to assess what a person has learned
aptitude test
a test designed to predict a person's future performance; aptitude is the capacity to learn
mental age
a measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance. Thus, a child who does as well as the average 8-year-old is said to have a mental age of 8
Stanford-Binet
the widely used American revision of Binet's original intelligence test
intelligence quotient (IQ)
defined originally as the ratio of mental age to chronical age multiplied by 100. On contemporary intelligence tests, the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
the WAIS is the most widely used intelligence test; contains verbal and performance (nonverbal) subtests
standardization
defining meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group
normal curve
a symmetrical, bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many types of data; most scores fall near the mean, or average, and fewer and fewer near the extremes
reliability
the extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, or on retesting
validity
the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to
content validity
the extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest (such as a driving test that samples driving tasks)
predictive validity
the success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict; it is assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and the criterion behavior