Measurement and Assessment in Psychology

Measurement and Assessment in Psychology

Over the several last decades the IQ test has gained a lot of popularity and it is conducted at almost every institution for measuring the placement of students and other individuals on merit. Provision of measures of intelligence and other cognitive facilities is guaranteed through the IQ tests. When admitting a child for kindergarten, an IQ test is administered to determine the child’s level of intelligence besides their ability to interact and understand their environment and learn from it. It is more of a readiness testing which aid to determine if the child has the skills such as social, cognitive and academic to help them succeed in elementary school. The evaluation informs the parents decision and gives them piece of mind whether to consider enrolling their child or wait for another year to give the child more time.

The IQ test is adequate especially when conducted on children who have clear difficulty with behavioral control, language development and acquisition of facts which makes its face validity appropriate. On the other hand, the content validity of the test is not questionable since it tests the child’s innate abilities such as verbal skills, nonverbal skills and processing speeds which are significant for the enrolment besides the reading and math skills. To determine the reliability of the test, it need to be done more than once and if the results are consistent then the test will be considered reliable. No matter when the child takes the test, the results will be similar thus proving its reliability.

I believe that no one should rely completely on the IQ scores because with practice even an intelligence test is not foolproof. Steady gains in general knowledge, reasoning ability and vocabulary will surely be obvious over time. The scores only look to determine strengths and weaknesses in specific areas so that one can look into what can be done to improve themselves.