How Much Does IQ Assess Human Intelligence?
It was during the World War I when the U.S. government provided a series of qualification tests to the Armed Forces. They modified the IQ test, which was originally created in France to help identify students who needed extra help in school, to find qualified candidates since the leaders in the armed forces thought that letting unqualified people into battle could be dangerous. Then, how can IQ be the determinant of people who are considered qualified and not qualified?
IQ, short for intelligence quotient, is a measure of a person’s reasoning ability. In short, it is supposed to gauge how well someone can use information and logic to answer questions or make predictions. IQ tests begin to assess this by measuring short- and long-term memory. They also measure how well people can solve puzzles and recall information they’ve heard — and how quickly.
In practice, IQ tests have been widely used to measure a person’s intelligence. Whether at school, college, or at the job selection stage. However, IQ is not absolute since everyone can learn to improve their intelligence. It is more precisely used to determine a person’s strengths and weaknesses. Cause someone can be good in one specific area of intelligence, while they also need extra help in other areas where they’re struggling.
In his 15 years of research, Keith Stanovich, professor of human development and applied psychology at the University of Toronto, Canada, has agreed that IQ tests are very good at measuring certain mental faculties, such as logical, abstract reasoning, learning ability and working-memory capacity — how much information someone can hold in mind. Nevertheless, the tests fall down when it comes to measuring crucial abilities when making good judgements in real-life situations. It can be about deciding which foods to eat, where to invest money, or how to deal with a difficult client at work.
David Perkins, who studied thinking and reasoning skills at Harvard Graduate School of Education, said, “A high IQ is like height in a basketball player.” It can be a very important to help the team, especially as a strength of the person, but still there is a lot more for being a good basketball player than being tall. It can also be stated that there is a lot more for being a good thinker than having a high IQ.
Overall, IQ test can be used as a tool to assess human intelligence. However, this does not necessarily classify which people are intelligent with people who are not, because basically people have abilities in a particular field, but that does not mean they will be intelligent in all aspects. IQ is not the only determinant of a person’s intelligence. It helps but is not absolute.
“It takes something more than intelligence to act more intelligently.” -Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment-
-Northern Ingo-
