Friday, December 25, 2020

Toward a Science of Effective Cognitive Training - Claire R. Smid, Julia Karbach, Nikolaus Steinbeis, 2020

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0963721420951599


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Kevin McGrew, PhD
Educational Psychologist
Director, Institute for Applied Psychometrics
IAP
www.themindhub.com
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Thursday, December 24, 2020

Be a hot or cool head.....it doesn't matter 😉



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Kevin McGrew, PhD
Educational Psychologist
Director, Institute for Applied Psychometrics
IAP
www.themindhub.com
******************************************************

Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Where Does Creativity Come from? What Is Creativity? Where Is Creativity Going in Giftedness? | SpringerLink

Where Does Creativity Come from? What Is Creativity? Where Is Creativity Going in Giftedness? | SpringerLink
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-56869-6_5

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Kevin S. McGrew, PhD
Educational & School Psychologist
Director
Institute for Applied Psychometrics (IAP)
https://www.themindhub.com
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Sunday, December 20, 2020

Testing Our Children When the World Shuts Down: Analyzing Recommendations for Adapted Tele-Assessment during COVID-19 - Shelley Kathleen Krach, Tracy L. Paskiewicz, Malaya M. Monk, 2020

Testing Our Children When the World Shuts Down: Analyzing Recommendations for Adapted Tele-Assessment during COVID-19 - Shelley Kathleen Krach, Tracy L. Paskiewicz, Malaya M. Monk, 2020 
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0734282920962839

Abstract
In 2017, the National Association of School Psychologists described tele-assessment as the least researched area of telehealth. This became problematic in 2020 when COVID-19 curtailed the administration of face-to-face assessments. Publishers began to offer computer-adapted tele-assessment methods for tests that had only previously been administered in person. Recommendations for adapted tele-assessment practice had to be developed with little empirical data. The current study analyzed recommendations from entities including professional organizations, test publishers, and governmental offices. The samples for each were small, but the findings were noteworthy. Test publishers were unanimous in recommending the use of their face-to-face assessments through adapted tele-assessment methods (either with or without caution). Governmental agencies were more likely to recommend not using adapted tele-assessment methods or to use these methods with caution. Finally, professional organizations were almost unanimous in their recommendations to use adapted tele-assessment but to do so with caution. In addition to deviations in the types of recommendations provided, entities varied in how the information was distributed. About one-fifth (23.5%) of all entities surveyed provided no recommendations at all. About 45% of the remaining entities provided recommendations on their Web sites. The rest provided information through shared documents, online toolkits, peer-reviewed journals, and emails. Implications for the field of psychology's future crisis management planning are discussed in response to these findings.
Keywords tele-assessmentvaliditybest practicestechnologyassessmentCOVID-19crisisprogram evaluatio

Thursday, December 17, 2020

A CHC model of cognitive adapted to African culture. Towards a Model of Valued Human Cognitive Abilities: An African Perspective Based on a Systematic Review | Psychology

Thought provoking adaptation and extension of CHC theory of intelligence to African culture. Double click on image to enlarge.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.538072/full

Towards a Model of Valued Human Cognitive Abilities: An African Perspective Based on a Systematic Review

Seth Oppong*

Department of Psychology, University of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana

Studies that investigate cognitive ability in African children and estimate the general cognitive abilities of African adults tend to work with existing models of intelligence. However, African philosophy and empirical studies in cross-cultural psychology have demonstrated that conceptualizations of human cognitive ability vary with location. This paper begins with the assumption that the existing Anglo-American models of cognitive abilities are valuable but limited in their capacity to account for the various conceptualizations of valued cognitive abilities in different human societies. On the basis of this assumption, I employ extant empirical evidence generated through ethnographic studies across Africa to formulate what an African model of valued human cognitive ability
ought to be. The output of this formulation has been so christened a model of valued cognitive ability in order to draw attention to the fact that models of cognitive abilities have currency and values in each human society. This value allocation is expected to influence which elements of cognitive ability each human society will promote and develop. In
addition, implications for theory, research and praxes are discussed.

Keywords: African models, intelligence, cognitive abilities, Africa, valued human cognitive abilities

Wednesday, December 16, 2020

The big picture ecological systems perspective of intelligence (and IQ tests): Is COVID disrupting and rearranging the hierarchy of ecological system influences on children's learning?

Understanding intelligence testing in the context of Bronfrenbrenner's ecological systems model--is COVID seriously damaging, rearranging, decoupling, etc. the major proximal and distal sources of influence on a child's learning, resulting in a need to look closer at non-cognitive (conative) variables...beyond IQ?

This morning I revisited one of my favorite videos (of those I have posted), first posted in 2015, where I explained how intelligence testing needed to be understood in the context of distal and proximal influences in a child's environment.  I believe that a "big picture" understanding of the wide range of variables that influence school learning requires a "humbling" of the status of intelligence testing, a field where I have spent the majority of my professional career.  After one finishes the video, think about the "big picture" ecological systems model that is described. IMHO, COVID may be seriously impacting that the primary distal and proximal variables that influence (both positively and negatively) school learning (national educational policy; school systems and local community sources of formal and informal support; individual schools; the lack of in class learning; parents working from home or being unemployed), as well as peer interactions in a child's neighborhood (due to social distancing).  Stare at the final big picture figure and reflect on how COVID is disrupting all the primary sets of variables that influence school learning.  The range of disrupted causal influences is staggering. 

The end result, for many children, is learning via distance learning methods, often with the aid of parents who are not educators.  Although intelligence is very important, and may be more important as children must use their abilities to learn more independently, it strikes me that at this point in our countries (global) current crises, it may be the non-cognitive variables that might need better understanding and enhancement.  That is, the conative (aka., noncognitive) "beyond IQ" variables of motivation and self-regulated learning (aka., a part of volition) may be more important today than ever.  To engage in independent, loosely (dis)organized instruction, students who have strong motivation and independent self-regulation learning strategies may have a distinct advantage--those who do not, may be at a serious disadvantage.  Jack Carroll's seminal model of school learning, that spawned decades of research on models of school learning, reminds us, in elegant terms, that aside from key student individual difference variables, the quantity (opportunity for instruction) and quality of instruction are key variables in school learning.  Both of these are being seriously impacted due to COVID.

COVID appears to be a high level all encompassing distal variable (wielding impact at the global, national, community, and school system levels) that is rearranging the the relative importance of  variables in school learning.  Students now, and in the future, may need more assistance in acquiring critical non-cognitive motivational dispositions and independent self-regulated learning strategies in order to maximize what they can from their repertoire of cognitive abilities in order to continue and maintain academic growth.  If may be necessary to revise the degree of influence of distal and proximal school learning influence variables as per Bronfrenbreener's ecological systems model.





Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Creativity and Innovation in Times of Crisis (COVID-19) | Frontiers Research Topic

Creativity and Innovation in Times of Crisis (COVID-19) | Frontiers Research Topic
https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/13833/creativity-and-innovation-in-times-of-crisis-covid-19#articles

And more research suggesting that attentional control (AC) may be central to human intelligence

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002396902030182X?via%3Dihub 

Click on image to enlarge.


******************************************************
Kevin McGrew, PhD
Educational Psychologist
Director, Institute for Applied Psychometrics
IAP
www.themindhub.com
******************************************************

Sunday, December 13, 2020

Measurement Matters. Andrew Conway on measurement of intelligence on channel g

Measurement Matters
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/channel-g/202012/measurement-matters

Saturday, December 12, 2020

Decker provides cogent response to Dombrowski et al's "all there is is g" bifactor intelligence research

 https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0734282920977718

Abstract
The current article provides a response to concerns raised by Dombrowski, McGill, Canivez, Watkins, & Beaujean (2020) regarding the methodological confounds identified by Decker, Bridges, Luedke, and Eason (2020) for using a bifactor (BF) model and Schmid–Leiman (SL) procedure in previous studies supporting a general factor of intelligence (i.e., "g"). While Dombrowski et al. (2020) raised important theoretical and practical issues, the theoretical justification for using a BF model and SL procedure to identify cognitive dimensions remain unaddressed, as well as significant concerns for using these statistical methods as the basis for informing the use of cognitive tests in clinical applications

Friday, December 11, 2020

No negative Flynn effect in France: Why variations of intelligence should not be assessed using tests based on cultural knowledge - ScienceDirect

Article link - Intelligence

Abstract
In 2015, Dutton and Lynn published an account of a decrease of intelligence in France (negative Flynn effect) which had considerable societal impact. This decline was argued to be biological. However, there is good reason to be skeptical of these conclusions. The claim of intelligence decline was based on the finding of lower scores on the WAIS-III (normed in 1999) for a recent sample, but careful examination of the data suggests that this decline was in fact limited to subtests with a strong influence of culture-dependent declarative knowledge. In Study 1, we re-analyzed the data used by Dutton and Lynn (2015) and showed that only subtests of the WAIS primarily assessing cultural knowledge (Gc) demonstrated a significant decline. Study 2 replicated this finding and confirmed that performance was constant on other subtests. An analysis of differential item functioning in the five subtests with a decline showed that about one fourth of all items were significantly more difficult for subjects in a recent sample than in the original normative sample, for an equal level of ability. Decline on a subtest correlated 0.95 with its cultural load. These results confirm that there is currently no evidence for a decrease of intelligence in France, with prior findings being attributable to a drift of item difficulty for older versions of the WAIS, due to cultural changes. This highlights the role of culture in Wechsler's intelligence tests and indicates that when interpreting (negative) Flynn effects, the past should really be treated as a different country.

Flicker fusion thresholds as a clinical identifier of a magnocellular-deficit dyslexic subgroup



Flicker fusion thresholds as a clinical identifier of a magnocellular-deficit dyslexic subgroup
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-78552-3?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

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