| + Background to the study | - Alfred Binet and the First IQ Test: During the early 1900’s on students were most likely to experience difficulty in schools
- He quickly realised that some children could answer more advanced questions
- He suggested the concept of a mental age, or a measurement of intelligence based on the average abilities of children of a certain age group |
| Aim of Gould's article and Yerkes' study | - Yerkes: wanted psychology to be considered as a science + was interested in mental testing
- Gould: criticises attempts made to measure intelligence |
| Who was Robert Yerkes | - Professor of Psychology at Harvard University
- Didn't like that his subject was viewed as a 'soft' science |
| What did Gould want to show about Yerkes measures of intelligence | - That they were flawed with disastrous consequences |
| IQ definition (kwow-shunt) | - ‘Intelligence quotient’
- Measurement of certain abilities - there is no pass or fail
- Different types of intelligence, so there are different types of test to measure them |
| Yerkes' research method | - Quasi experiment, country of origin and skin colour is naturally occurring
- Large scale psychometric testing
- Independent measures |
| Data | - Quantitive |
| Quantitive data | - Scores in the tests
- Creating 'average mental age' of people from different ethnic backgrounds |
| Strengths of the Quantitive data | - Objective and easy to analyse
- Mean mental ages for each group calculated- numerical so its objective |
| Weaknesses of the Quantitive data | - Reductionist, implies there is a difference, but does not give any insight into why the differences exist |
| Yerkes sample | - 1.75 million USA army men from a range of backgrounds and ages during WW1
- Opportunity sample |
| Why could measuring differences between people become socially sensitive? | - Because not only are you saying people are different, but that they might be worse at something |
| Psychometric test meaning | - Expresses psychological constructs in numerical form |
| The three Yerkes tests | - Army Alpha
- Army Beta
- Individual Examination |
| Alpha test | - Written examination for literate recruits
- 8 parts, took less than an hour
- Complete the sequence, complete analogies... |
| Beta test | - Pictorial task for the illiterate who failed Army Alpha
- 7 parts including complete the maze, complete-a-picture... |
| IE test | - Individualised exam for those who failed Army beta |
| The conditions like under which the participants completed the test | - Rushed and intimidating |
| Grading the tests | - Graded each man from A to E
- Recruits with score of C marked as 'low average intelligence' + rank of 'ordinary private' |
| The problem with how Yerkes administered the tests | - It was hard to keep everything standardised |
| What did Yerkes say about men who were illiterate in English and what was the problem with this? | - He wanted illiterates to take Army Alpha Test
- But wasn't always the case due to logistics + practicality
- Recruits had spent less time in school than Yerkes anticipated
- So many men were queuing for the Beta test
- Ended up lowering the definition of literate so more could take the Army Alpha |
| What happened to the illiterate men who ended up taking the Army Alpha test? | - They ended up getting zero therefore they needed to take the Army Beta test anyway
- But due to time pressures this didn't always happen |
| How many cases did E.G. Boring select for analysis? | - 160,000 cases were selected for analysis |
| What did Yerkes claim to be measuring?
How does Gould argue against this? | - Yerkes claimed native intellectual ability but Gould argued it relied heavily on cultural knowledge |
| Discrimination in the tests | - Black people were less likely to be recalled to complete a beta test |
| What was the highest mental age? Who did it belong to? | -13.04, White American |
| What was the lowest mental age? Who did it belong to? | -10.41, Black American |
| Average mental ages | - White American 13.04
- Black American 10.41
- Russian immigrant 11.34
- Italian immigrant 11.01
- Polish immigrant 10.74 |
| 3 conclusions Yerkes made | - Intelligence is inherited so can grade people based on skin colour
- The average man of most states were moronic
- Psychometric testing is a valid, scientific with wide implications for society |
| Impact of the results | - Led to the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924
- Up to 6 million southern, central + eastern Europeans were barred entry to the USA between 1924 + near the WW2 |
| What did Gould say about the design of the tests? | - He said they were 'ludicrous' and the tests were culturally and systematically biased |
| What did Gould say about the administration of the tests? | - Points out illiterate men were most likely black men (who would have less schooling due to segregation, poor condition in black schools etc)
- Or those who only recently migrated - systematic bias |
| What did Gould say about the way Yerkes findings were used? | - Sent many people to their deaths by the Nazis as they had nowhere to go |
| Gould's study can be described as a review, what does this mean? | - An analysis of another persons work/study |
| Strength of a review | - No ethical concerns by the reviewer and is good to update views/research |
| Weakness of a review | - Could be biased in what aspects of other people's work you choose/select |
| Ethics | - Ethical guidelines did not exist at that time and the government had approved of the tests
- Confidentiality, actual names of the recruits are not known |
| Ethnocentricism | - Tests were based on American culture
- 'scientific racism'
- Results were from a wide range of countries |
| Were Yerkes' ways of measuring intelligence standardised and replicable? (Internal reliability) | - No, they were organised differently in different army camps, people were given the wrong tests and rushed
- Definition of literate was also varied |
| Was Yerkes' sample large enough to suggest a consistent effect? (External reliability) | - Yes, 1.75 million recruits |
| Were Yerkes' tests accurate measures of 'native intellectual ability'? (Construct validity) | - No, heavily relied on cultural knowledge/ amount of time spent in the USA/ language skills and therefore was not measuring IQ |
| How representative of the wider population was Yerkes' sample? (Population validity) | - Only army recruits so younger and all men |
| Psychology as a science | - Yerkes, standardised, tests objective
- Big issue with falsifiability |
| Nature Vs Nurture debate NATURE | - Yerkes, intelligence is innate + unaffected by the environment |
| Nature Vs Nurture debate NURTURE | - Gould, tests affected by environmental factors e.g. how long they've spent in US |
| Link to area/perspectives | - Individual differences area, measuring how individuals differ
- Cognitive, trying to measure mental ability
- Gould, developmental, nature– nurture debate |
| Link to key theme | - Measuring differences |
