By Lisa Ahern, Ph.D.
When many people think of IQ tests and scores, they think of these as measure of how “smart” they are. There are even many IQ tests available today on the Internet that you can take for fun. But do they really mean anything? What are real IQ tests like? And what are they for?
An IQ (intelligence quotient) is a score that is meant to be a measure of cognitive ability and is supposed to represent the ways in which people think and problem solve. There are many types of intelligence and many ways people try to measure them. Though there are many internet IQ tests, and there are group IQ tests given to children in school, the most valid and reliable IQ tests are given by psychologists in a one-on-one setting.
Most IQ tests given by psychologists measure verbal intelligence, or how well you reason and think using words, through questions presented and responded to orally. Visual-spatial intelligence and perceptual reasoning (aka “non-verbal intelligence,”) are often measured by having the person give a response without using words – for example, they may put blocks together to make a design or point to pictures that finish a visual pattern. There are other types of information processing that can be measured on IQ tests as well like short term memory or speed of processing. Individual performance on these tests is compared to the performance of a very large sample of people who were given the test, and the IQ scores represent where he or she falls in comparison to the people from that sample. For some people, their ability to process information in all of these ways is similar; while other people have different strengths and weakness when it comes to the way they process things. For example, they might be good at problem solving, but their speed of processing is slow. In these situations, the overall or “Full Scale” IQ score does not really represent all of their processing abilities.
There are several purposes for taking an IQ test. One is to get an idea of how that person should be performing in school, since IQ scores tend to predict academic achievement scores (such as in reading, writing, and math). When achievement scores are much lower than IQ scores, that is one sign that a learning disability may be present. Other reasons to get an IQ test are to figure out how a person processes information. What areas are they good at? What areas are harder for them and what does that mean for how well they can do school work or other tasks? For example, people with strong verbal intelligence tend to be good at reading and writing and can also be skilled in explaining things to others. People with strong non-verbal intelligence tend to do well with math tasks and aspects of science and engineering.
No matter what your IQ test says about your thinking abilities, it is important to keep in mind that there are many types of intelligence that are NOT measured on standard IQ tests like interpersonal skills, creativity, athleticism, or musical and artistic ability. IQ scores can also be affected by situational factors such as whether or not the person is rested and feeling well when the test was given or if there are distractions. Finally, IQ scores can change over time to a certain degree, so one number may not always represent a person’s “intelligence.”
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Posted on November 04, 2009