Assessment for Learning MOOC’s Updates

Intelligence and Knowledge

https://www.coursera.org/learn/assessmentforlearning/discussions/weeks/1/threads/Em5J_9xtRTiuSf_cbfU...

Intelligence is in born and Knowledge is acquired as per Henry Goddard. Tests are conducted to know the intelligence of a student. The study of human intelligence dates back to the late 1800s when Sir Francis Galton (the cousin of Charles Darwin) became one of the first people to study intelligence. There are many intelligent tests such as Alfred Binet’s intelligence tests, Robert Yerkes-Army Intelligent Test, Spearman’s General Intelligence (1904), Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences etc. These are intelligence tests are now referred to as intelligence quotient (IQ) tests, are the most widely-known and used to measure/determine an individual’s intelligence.

Defining and classifying intelligence is extremely complicated. Theories of intelligence range from having one general intelligence, to certain primary mental abilities, and to multiple category-specific intelligences. The intelligence of an average student may vary depending upon their origin, birth and social conditions. According to the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (AERA, APA, & NCME, 2014), a test may be considered unfair if it penalizes students for not having learned the content in a test of intelligence.

It is important to regularly standardize an intelligence test because the overall level of intelligence in a population may change over time. This phenomenon is known as the Flynn effect (named after its discoverer, New Zealand researcher James Flynn) which refers to the observation that scores on intelligence tests worldwide increase from decade to decade (Flynn, 1984) in the same tests, as students are getting smarter with the increase in technology and communication.

The strengths and weaknesses in a student’s thinking and knowing gives us information about his intelligence and knowledge respectively. We can get information about how much a student has learned (developed knowledge) from school grades and the wide variety of published achievement tests. These tools are explicitly designed to measure what a student knows in a variety of content areas. Knowledge can be developed by learning in the concerned area, field, topic etc. but intelligence is in born and to increase the same more hard work and commitment are required.

References

American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, & the National Council on Measurement in Education. (2014). Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. American Educational Research Association.

Ruhl, C. (2020, July 16). Intelligence: definition, theories and testing. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/intelligence.html