Intelligent Insights on Intelligence Theories and Tests
An Alternative Approach to Cognitive and Achievement Relations Research: An Introduction to Quantile Regression | SpringerLink
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40817-020-00086-3
• Daniel B. Hajovsky, Ethan F. Villeneuve, W. Joel Schneider & Jacqueline M. Caemmerer
• Journal of Pediatric Neuropsychology (2020)Cite this article
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A large body of prior work shows that cognitive abilities and basic academic skills explain individual differences in performance on reading, writing, and math achievement measures. However, this research focuses exclusively on the average relations between cognitive and achievement scores without consideration of whether effects vary at different thresholds of academic performance. To address this limitation, we employed unconditional quantile regression to explore the effects of cognitive abilities and basic and intermediate academic skills on advanced achievement outcomes as a function of reading, writing, or math skill level in a large nationally representative sample of youth and adolescent children (N = 3891). Quantile regression is a methodological technique that allows for a more nuanced examination of whether differential effects along the distribution of an outcome skill exist, which often goes undetected when employing more conventional regression methods that focus on mean effects. Findings from this exploratory study generally showed that cognitive abilities and basic and intermediate academic skills had a pattern of differential effects depending on achievement level, with stronger effects often observed when performance on the academic outcome measure was lower. This exploratory study provides an illustrative example of unconditional quantile regression and how it can be interpreted and applied within an area of relevance to pediatric neuropsychology.
School psychologists in today's schools have the unique opportunity—and responsibility—to guide identification for gifted programs. "Who is gifted?" remains a perennial question in the gifted education literature, not answered by group intelligence screeners that purportedly level the playing field for all. As the student body grows more diverse, there is increasing necessity to ensure that all students have equal access to gifted programs. Failure to identify and develop the advanced abilities of gifted children who are culturally diverse, economically deprived, highly gifted, or twice exceptional is justifiably viewed as a civil rights violation. The National Association for Gifted Children's 2018 position statement, "Use of the WISC‐V for Gifted and Twice Exceptional Identification," offers important considerations for identifying the gifted. Based on a national research study of 390 gifted children on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fifth Edition (WISC‐V), the statement recommends that the traditional practice of mandating Full Scale intelligence quotient scores be abandoned. Instead, it embraces the use of any one of six expanded index scores that are better measures of abstract reasoning for selecting students for gifted provisions. As gifted children are oftentimes asynchronous, alternate index scores are less biased and better able to document the strengths of all gifted children. What is learned from the WISC‐V can be applied by school psychologists to improve the choice of comprehensive individual intelligence tests, brief intelligence tests, and the body of evidence gifted children must exhibit.
This paper is an attempt to provide a brief guide to major conceptual and statistical problems that are unique to the study of individual differences in intelligence and various intellectual abilities, in the context of laboratory experimental studies, and to suggest strategies to successfully navigate these problems. Such studies are generally designed so that the goal is to evaluate the relationships between individual differences in basic task performance or related markers on the one hand, and individual differences in intellectual abilities on the other hand. Issues discussed in this paper include: restriction-of-range in talent, method variance and facet theory; speed vs. power; regression to the mean; extreme-groups designs; difference scores; differences in correlations; significant vs. meaningful correlations; factor- pure tests; and criterion variables. A list of representative "do" and "don't" recommendations is provided to help guide the design and evaluation of laboratory studies.
AbstractMany neuropsychologists are of the opinion that the multitude of cognitive tests may be grouped into a much smaller number of cognitive domains. However, there is little consensus on how many domains exist, what these domains are, nor on which cognitive tests belong to which domain. This incertitude can be solved by factor analysis, provided that the analysis includes a broad range of cognitive tests that have been administered to a very large number of people. In this article, two such factor analyses were performed, each combining multiple studies. However, because it was not possible to obtain complete multivariate data on more than the most common test variables in the field, not all possible domains were examined here. The first analysis was a factor meta-analysis of correlation matrices combining data of 60,398 healthy participants from 52 studies. Several models from the literature were fitted, of which a version based on the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) model was found to describe the correlations better than the others. The second analysis was a factor analysis of the Advanced Neuropsychological Diagnostics Infrastructure (ANDI) database, combining scores of 11,881 participants from 54 Dutch and Belgian studies not included in the first meta-analysis. Again, the model fit was better for the CHC model than for other models. Therefore, we conclude that the CHC model best characterizes both cognitive domains and which test belongs to each domain. Therefore, although originally developed in the intelligence literature, the CHC model deserves more attention in neuropsychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)
Specific learning disabilities (SLDs) are highly relevant to the science and practice of psychology, both historically and currently, exemplifying the integration of interdisciplinary approaches to human conditions. They can be manifested as primary conditions—as difficulties in acquiring specific academic skills—or as secondary conditions, comorbid to other developmental disorders such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. In this synthesis of historical and contemporary trends in research and practice, we mark the 50th anniversary of the recognition of SLDs as a disability in the United States. Specifically, we address the manifestations, occurrence, identification, comorbidity, etiology, and treatment of SLDs, emphasizing the integration of information from the interdisciplinary fields of psychology, education, psychiatry, genetics, and cognitive neuroscience. SLDs, exemplified here by specific word reading, reading comprehension, mathematics, and written expression disabilities, represent spectrum disorders, each occurring in approximately 5% to 15% of the school-aged population. In addition to risk for academic deficiencies and related functional social, emotional, and behavioral difficulties, those with SLDs often have poorer long-term social and vocational outcomes. Given the high rate of occurrence of SLDs and their lifelong negative impact on functioning if not treated, it is important to establish and maintain effective prevention, surveillance, and treatment systems involving professionals from various disciplines trained to minimize the risk and maximize the protective factors for SLDs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)
Intelligence is a well-studied construct in psychology that has correlational relationships with many educational, employment, and health outcomes. However, prior research indicates that incorrect beliefs about intelligence are widespread. In an effort to discern the degree to which the psychology curriculum is responsible for these inaccuracies, we collected course descriptions and catalog information from 303 American colleges and universities. We found that college courses dedicated to mainstream intelligence science are rare. Because the lack of intelligence education within psychology is a plausible contributor to incorrect beliefs about intelligence, we present an outline for a college-level course on intelligence. We also provide advice for implementing a course, including course readings and advice for handling controversies.
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-20160-015Citation
Caruso, D. R., Mayer, J. D., Bryan, V., Phillips, K. G., & Salovey, P. (2019). Measuring emotional and personal intelligence. In M. W. Gallagher & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), Positive psychological assessment: A handbook of models and measures (p. 233–245). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000138-015
Abstract
In this chapter, we describe two types of intelligence centered on reasoning about people that we regard as important elements of individuals' positive psychology. Emotional intelligence and personal intelligence are mental abilities related to but partially distinct from general mental ability (i.e., IQ). People use their emotional intelligence (EI) to understand people's emotions and the emotional information around them and their personal intelligence (PI) to understand personality-related information. We begin by placing EI and PI within the pantheon of other forms of intelligence and at the same time distinguish them from other forms of intelligence, such as spatial or quantitative. We classify EI and PI as "people-centered" intelligences versus more traditional "thing-oriented" intelligences (Mayer, 2018; Mayer & Skimmyhorn, 2017). We also explore how EI and PI are measured and provide examples of how they can be applied in our lives. EI and PI—defined and measured as an ability—may be considered to be broad intelligences along with other intelligences such as verbal or spatial. These new intelligences can assist us in identifying abilities that are related to "people" outcomes such as relationship quality and well-being. The future of people-centered intelligence holds a great deal of promise as the concept is developed further and advances in measurement are achieved. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)
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Convergent creative thinking performance is associated with white matter structures: Evidence from a large sample study - ScienceDirect
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811920300641Keywords
Convergent thinkingRemote associatesStructural connectivityVoxel-based morphometryDiffusion tensor imaging
******************************************Kevin S. McGrew, PhDEducational & School PsychologistDirectorInstitute for Applied Psychometrics (IAP)******************************************
Recent research on the role of general mental ability (GMA) and specific abilities in work-related outcomes has shown that the results differ depending on the theoretical and conceptual approach that researchers use. While earlier research has typically assumed that GMA causes the specific abilities and has thus used incremental validity analysis, more recent research has explored the implications of treating GMA and specific abilities as equals (differing only in breadth and not subordination) and has used relative importance analysis. In this article, we extend this work to the prediction of extrinsic career success operationalized as pay, income, and the attainment of jobs with high prestige. Results, based on a large national sample, revealed that GMA and specific abilities measured in school were good predictors of job prestige measured after 11 years, pay measured after 11 years, and income 51 years later toward the end of the participants' work lives. With 1 exception, GMA was a dominant predictor in incremental validity analyses. However, in relative importance analyses, the majority of the explained variance was explained by specific abilities, and GMA was not more important than single specific abilities in relative importance analyses. Visuospatial, verbal, and mathematical abilities all had substantial variance shares and were also more important than GMA in some of the analyses. Implications for the interpretation of cognitive ability data and facilitating people's success in their careers are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)
Executive functioning remains an elusive paradigm in regard to their underlying constructs. The Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) theory of cognitive functions is the predominant theory of the measurement of human intelligence in psychology in regard to test construction and interpretation. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relations between components of the Tower Test and Color-Word Interference Test from the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS) and CHC theory, as measured by the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Cognitive Abilities (WJ-III-COG). Participants were 64 undergraduate students (women, n = 38; men, n = 26), with a mean age of 19.88 years. Results of a Structured Equation Model indicated a correlation between the two factors modeled for Intelligence and Executive functioning was estimated to be 0.575 (0.331), and was statistically significant (p < .001), with a 95% credible interval of (0.551, 0.599). Thus, approximately 33% of the variance for measures of Intelligence was accounted for by measures of Executive Functioning; the biggest CHC contributor was Numbers Reversed which argues for the importance of attention and working memory being an important component of executive functioning. The results suggest that despite a relation between some components of executive function and cognitive ability, much variance between the D-KEFS and WJ-III-COG remains unaccounted for. These findings have implications for evaluation and intervention planning within vocational and educational settings.
Mental imagery can be advantageous, unnecessary and even clinically disruptive. With methodological constraints now overcome, research has shown that visual imagery involves a network of brain areas from the frontal cortex to sensory areas, overlapping with the default mode network, and can function much like a weak version of afferent perception. Imagery vividness and strength range from completely absent (aphantasia) to photo-like (hyperphantasia). Both the anatomy and function of the primary visual cortex are related to visual imagery. The use of imagery as a tool has been linked to many compound cognitive processes and imagery plays both symptomatic and mechanistic roles in neurological and mental disorders and treatments.
In the last two decades, individual-differences research has put forward 3 cognitive psychometric constructs: executive control (i.e., the ability to monitor and control ongoing thoughts and actions), working memory capacity (WMC, i.e., the ability to retain access to a limited amount of information in the service of complex tasks), and fluid intelligence (gF, i.e., the ability to reason with novel information). These constructs have been proposed to be closely related, but previous research failed to substantiate a strong correlation between executive control and the other two constructs. This might arise from the difficulty in establishing executive control as a latent variable and from differences in the way the 3 constructs are measured (i.e., executive control is typically measured through reaction times, whereas WMC and gF are measured through accuracy). The purpose of the present study was to overcome these difficulties by measuring executive control through accuracy. Despite good reliabilities of all measures, structural equation modeling identified no coherent factor of executive control. Furthermore, WMC and gF-modeled as distinct but correlated factors-were unrelated to the individual measures of executive control. Hence, measuring executive control through accuracy did not overcome the difficulties of establishing executive control as a latent variable. These findings call into question the existence of executive control as a psychometric construct and the assumption that WMC and gF are closely related to the ability to control ongoing thoughts and actions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
The history of testing mental abilities has seen the dominance of two contrasting approaches, psychometrics and neuropsychology. These two traditions have different theories and methodologies, but overlap considerably in the tests they use. Historically, psychometrics has emphasized the primacy of a general factor, while neuropsychology has emphasized specific abilities that are dissociable. This issue about the nature of human mental abilities is important for many practical concerns. Questions such as gender, ethnic, and age-related differences in mental abilities are relatively easy to address if they are due to a single dominant trait. Presumably such a trait can be measured with any collection of complex cognitive tests. If there are many specific mental abilities, these would be much harder to measure and associated social issues would be more difficult to resolve. The relative importance of general and specific abilities also has implications for educational practices. This book includes the diverse opinions of experts from several fields including psychometrics, neuropsychology, speech language and hearing, and applied psychology.