INDIVIDUALS always differ from one another in their ability to understand different phenomena. In 1905, to assess the intelligence of a person, Alfred Binet developed a test-scale to measure the mental capabilities of a child called, intelligence quotient (IQ). Later on, he generalized this test for everybody.
Intelligence is an integral part of a person. The IQ test measures the achievement as well as the ability of a person. However, in my opinion, IQ scores are not the true representative of a person’s intelligence. The test cannot assess aspects like creativity and emotional intelligence of a human being.
Those in favour of using IQ scores might argue that these tests are useful for identifying a perfect candidate for a particular job. This argument makes an assumption that those who score more in the test are more suitable for that job. However, it seems obvious that the performance of a person during an IQ test depends on a variety of factors. Every culture provides a different kind of environment to a child to develop its intellectual abilities. It is very difficult to compare concepts of intelligence across cultures. Alice Miller once stated: “We are all prisoners of our childhood, whether we know it, suspect it, deny it, or have never ever heard about the possibility.”
A normal child requires a healthy family environment. Severely deprived, neglected or abused environment will have negative effects on the growth of a child. In 1993, Atkinson identifies: “Children from under-privileged families tend to fall behind the cognitive development even before they enter school.”
It has been observed that groups living in different socio-economic status have different test scores. Hence, it is easy to suppose that environmental differences cause these IQ differences. Anderson (as cited in Papalia and Olds) studied Japanese school children and established that an increase in their IQ levels could be attributed to a number of environmental changes in their country and not to any change in their genetic code.
In cross-cultural researches on cognitive performance, it has been found that the IQ difference between the schooled and non-schooled individuals is very obvious. Schooling itself is an important determinant of problem-solving performance and verbal reasoning, including those abilities measured through psychometric tests.
Nutrition too plays an important role in developing the IQ of a child. Weener explains that low IQ scores are most common among children who have low-birth-weight and are reared in under-privileged families, whereas if they are reared in middle class families, they will have essentially normal IQs.
Another argument in favour of using IQ scores would be that it is a tool which assesses current knowledge of a person and through this assessment that person can be labelled as intelligent. As Jensen describes it, “intelligence is what the intelligence test measures”. But in 1941, Sten claimed that “intelligence is a great general capacity of an individual to adjust his thinking to new requirements. It is a general mental adaptability to new problems and conditions of life.”
We have also observed that everyday tasks, whatever their cultural origin, often require very complex reasoning and decision-making. Despite the fact that intelligence is difficult to define, we can all agree that it refers to intellectual ability as opposed to intellectual achievement. IQ scores only reveal a person’s capacity to correlate words quickly, but it doesn’t measure understanding or accurate knowledge. However, it is a fact that knowledge without understanding is nothing. If an individual is more intelligent emotionally, his learning takes place faster. In 2004, Hein defined emotions as “the mental ability we are born with, which gives us our emotional sensitivity and our potential for emotional learning and management skills, which can help us maximize our long-term health, happiness and survival.”
Our emotions alert us when our natural human need is not met. It also helps us in decision-making.
Therefore, we need to take into consideration all aspects while assessing a person’s intelligence. It could be further asserted that IQ tests are created in order to identify children who might need special education because of their compromised mental development. These tests distinguish mentally retarded children from those with behavioural problems. Also, IQ scores are the best guide for educators to identify slow-learners, who may require individualized care. They help diagnose learning problems and provide additional information to aid the teacher in identifying children with learning disorders. However, I’m not trying to say that IQ tests don’t help in identifying the problems. Having said that, it is a fact that they cannot measure all dimensions of a person’s intelligence. It is important to realize that learning is a continuous process which could be changed anytime.
In the end it has to be said that knowledge and understanding are not the same thing. They are loosely connected and that connection is intelligence. A person’s intellectual performance will vary with different criteria on different occasions in different domains. Therefore, intelligence should be judged on many levels.
INDIVIDUALS always differ from one another in their ability to understand different phenomena. In 1905, to assess the intelligence of a person, Alfred Binet developed a test-scale to measure the mental capabilities of a child called, intelligence quotient (IQ). Later on, he generalized this test for everybody.
