A Learners’ View (ALV) Is Of Choices On The Shortest And Fastest Path To Learning, The Oxygen Of Social Life.

Main Article: Assessment

ASSESSMENT, ACHIEVEMENT, AND INTELLIGENCE, from a learners’ view (ALV), refers to ways of comparing the likelihood of people to learn and to generalize, that is, to contribute to society. Assessment as well as achievement and intelligence exist as social constructs to monitor the status of society to maintain itself and to adapt (change) to or to alter its surroundings.

Assessments

Assessments (tests) of learning occur in two related, but distinct, ways. Tests measure what a learner can do, that is, which of the five generic questions (solve five generic problems) the learner can answer. Both measure (appraise) the use of vocabulary of learners to solve problems. Both compare responses of individuals with something outside of the test. Comparisons occur with curricula requirements or with responses of respondents in a standardization sample of respondents.

Developers of both achievement and intelligence tests systematically and objectively compare results of individuals against standards in order to derive scores. The daily chemistry quiz in chemistry compares performance of learners against the curriculum objectives for the school. The intelligence test compares responses by the test taker against responses by a sample of people of similar chronological age and demographic background.

For example, one test item can serve in an achievement test and an intelligence test. For an achievement test, the tester shows a person a picture of an airplane asks, while pointing to the airplane, What is this? After the respondent answers, the tester shows a picture of a leaf cutter ant carrying a piece of leaf. The tester points to the leaf cutter and asks, What is this? To make this an intelligence test, the tester changes the problem and asks, What do the airplane and the leaf cutter have in common? (An answer is some version of, ‘They both carry things.’)

Achievement Tests

Achievement tests give priority to the use of vocabulary (including verbal nomenclature and repertoire, movement patterns, etc.) while holding constant the difficulty of problems to solve. These assessments range in names from informal oral or written daily quizzes to standardized examinations. They may have a criterion referent, such as common core academic performance standards, or a normalized according to answers most respondents gave during the standardization process.

For example, Name the parts of a molecule; how many are one plus one? Do you look up or down to see the moon? Competitive Olympic divers and ice skaters are judged against certain standards of movement, style, etc. These all have criterion references, that is a fixed standard of what is correct, right, or best response set by a curriculum, a theory, or settled opinion.

By contrast, these same probes, such as “Name the parts of a molecule” can use a normed answer to determine the correct response. Normed anger can refer to what most people said was the answer when the test was standardized. If the majority of test taker said the parts are small balls circling a bigger ball, then that could be the correct answer. However, test developers know to refine their questions, so such answers are not accepted.

Intelligence Tests

Intelligence tests examine the range of precision in use of vocabulary while holding vocabulary constant and increasing the difficulty of problems to solve. In general, it is easier to identify and match two words with similar meanings in a list than to ask the person to say two words with similar meaning and to give no prompts to go along with the request. For example, the question, What’s the difference between laziness and boredness? requires the responder to make a string of choices, first to define the two words, then to choose an antonym for each word, and then to say how they are different or not the same. Standardized vocabulary tests yield the single highest probability of measuring IQ scores derived from full intelligence tests.

Inventors and developers of standardized achievement and intelligence tests Binet and Simon (1907), Terman and Merrill (1937; 1960), and Wechsler (1958) taught their students how to derive test scores. They also showed novice test administrators how to identify, analyze, and report response patterns within their tests in order to describe ways for educators and clinicians ways to remedy these errors.

Paraskevopoulas and Kirk (1969) captured the professional sentiment that these test hold little clinical value for educators. Such assessments have been used mostly for classifying people into various groups, such as gifted, talented, average, etc. They argued for more specificity of actions educators and clinicians could take to remedy difficulties encounter by learners during formal assessments.

Algorithms of Assessments

Technically, the structure of assessments implement algorithms. These algorithms are instructions (directions or rules) to follow in order to develop various types of tests. At their core, differences between achievement and intelligence tests rests in differences between the levels of difficulty in use of vocabulary and problems to solve. These levels of difficulty are established by standardization procedures and published in manuals for these tests. Teachers familiar with formal vocabulary and textbooks at school grade levels can use these as rough indices of levels of vocabulary and problems their school board expects of students. Algorithms seldom exist in discussions by educators outside of perhaps advanced placement mathematics and science classes.

Algorithm for achievement tests: Vocabulary > problem to solve of each item. That is, vary the level of difficulty of vocabulary while holding the difficulty of problems to solve at a level lower than the vocabulary.)

Algorithm for intelligence tests: Problem to solve > vocabulary of item. That is, increase the level of difficulty of problems to solve while holding the level of difficulty of the vocabulary lower than for the problems.

References

Binet, A. & Simon, T. (1907). Les enfants anormaux. Paris, A. Colin. Published in English as Mentally defective children (1907).
Paraskevopoulas, J. and Kirk, S. (1969). Introduction, The Development and Psychometric Characteristics of the Revised Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, pp. 1-10.
Terman, L. and Merrill, M. (1960). Essential features of the Stanford Revisions. Stanford-Benet Intelligence Scale. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. pp. 5-40.
Wechsler, D. (1958). The nature of intelligence. Measurement and Appraisal of Adult Intelligence. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, pp. 3-23.

Related Resources

Farber, B., Harvey, D., and Lewis, M. (1966?).
Herrnstein, R. and Murray, R. (1994). Introduction. The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. NY: The Free Press, pp. 1-24.

Assessment, Achievement, and Intelligence