PSYCO335 Chapter Notes - Chapter 7: Premorbidity, David Wechsler, Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCO335
• Professor: Jaylene Brinker

Document Summary

Western society has tended to place great value on intelligence, but also on the idea of equality. F(cid:396)e(cid:395)ue(cid:374)t i(cid:374)te(cid:374)se pu(cid:271)li(cid:272) de(cid:271)ates a(cid:396)ou(cid:374)d the use of i(cid:374)tellige(cid:374)(cid:272)e tests to (cid:373)ake de(cid:272)isio(cid:374)s a(cid:271)out people"s edu(cid:272)atio(cid:374)al and occupational choice. The vital importance of accurately identifying individuals who were unlikely to benefit from regular education led to the promotion of concepts such as standardization, reliability, validity, norm-referenced interpretations. By-product of these initial assessment efforts is that both our concepts of intelligence and our intelligence assessment instruments have heavily emphasized aspects of intelligence that are directly relevant to educational and instructional initiatives. Tests of intelligence and related cognitive abilities are among the psychometrically strongest tests that psychologists have developed. Hard to define one option is to simply avoid the use of the term and to use other concepts, such as ability or, more accurately, general mental ability.