Question 10 (2)

Question 10 (2)

1. Definition of Children's Intelligence: No consensus.

   • In a study half a decade ago: Both laypeople and experts thought intelligence was made up of 3 broad attributes: verbal ability, practical problem solving, and social competence. But could not come to consensus as to what made up these attributes.
   • Contemp experts: Much less agreement. Tension of intelligence as a single capacity vs. a collection of loosely related skills present in both hist and contemp mental tests.
   • Most people: define intelligence in terms of complex combination of attributes. Difficult to define: behaviours reflecting intelligence change with age.

2. Definition of Factor Analysis

   • Complicated, correlational procedure used to identify sets of test items that cluster together: ie. Test takers who do well on one item in a cluster tend to do well on others e.g. verbal ability. (vocabulary, verbal comprehension etc.)
   • Distinct clusters called factors.
   • Was used by researchers to find out whether intelligence single trait or assortment of abilities.
   • Many researchers tried to identify the mental abilities which contribute to successful intelligence test performance.

3. Early Factor Analysts

   • Charles Spearman (1927): General intelligence.
     • Suggested all mental performance could be conceptualised in terms of a single general ability factor: "g"
       • Which represents abstract reasoning capacity, and influenced all test items.
     • Found that all test items he examined correlated with one another.
     • Also found: not all items correlated perfectly with each other, concluded that specific intelligences unique to each task be measured.
       • Vary according to the extent to which g contributed to them.
     • Downplayed significance of specific intelligences and considered g as supreme.
   • Louis Thurstone (1938): Primary mental abilities.
     • Questioned the importance of g.
     • His factor analysis tests indicated unrelated, separate factors exist.
       • declared supremacy of these factors: named them primary mental abilities.
   • Contemporary extensions of factor-analytic research
     • Current theorists propose hierarchical models: highest level is g, assumed to be present to some degree in all factors. These factors measured by subtests, can show strengths and weaknesses.
     • Raymond B Cattell (1971,1987): Crystallised vs. Fluid intelligence
       • In addition to "g", intelligence consists of two broad factors
         • Crystallised intelligence
           • Skills that depend on accrued knowledge and experience, good judgement and mastery of social customs e.g. vocabulary.
         • Fluid intelligence
           • Relies heavily on basic information-processing skills: the ability to detect relationships among stimuli, capacity of working memory etc.
           • Is assumed to be influenced more by conditions in the brain and less by culture.
             • Often works with crystallized intelligence to support effective reasoning, abstraction and problem-solving.
     • John Carroll (1993): Three-stratum theory of intelligence
       • Elaborates the models proposed by Spearman, Thurstone and Cattell.
       • Represented intelligence as having 3 tiers.
         • "g" at the top.
           • 2nd tier: Broad abilities: The basic biological components of intelligence.
             • 3rd tier: Narrow abilities: Specific behaviours through which people display 2nd tier factors e.g. creativity.
       • Most comprehensive model of factor-analytic classification of mental abilities.

4. Once we discover exactly what separates individuals who can solve certain mental test items from those who cannot we will know more about why a particular child does well or poorly.

   • And what skills must be strengthened to improve performance (Berk, 323).
     • Combining Psychometric and Information-Processing Approaches: The Componential Approach
       • To overcome limitations of factor analysis, conduct componential analyses of children's test scores, looking for relationships between aspects (or components) of info processing and test performance.
         • Componential analyses have revealed relationships between aspects of info processing and intelligence test performance.
           • Aspects: processing speed, working-memory capacity, flexible attention, memory, and reasoning strategies.
       • Psychometric approach to cognitive development: Foundation for a wide variety of intelligence tests available for assessing children's mental abilities.
         • Information-Processing Approach: Symbol manipulating system through which info flows ie. focuses on thinking process by concentrating on how info is actively coded, transformed and organised.