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