[lbo-talk] 'American kids, dumber than dirt'

[Miles Jackson]

Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> In sum, I am not disagreeing with your technical points about correlations
> between IQ/'aptitude' testing and academic performance.  I am making two
> different arguments: (1) that these are statistical correlations only, which
> either do not explain or create a false impression how human cognition work,
> and (2) that the actual use of these tests in social practice cannot be
> separated from the evaluation of their merits, and that actual use involved
> mainly elitist, if not fascist, goals of denying access to social resources
> for certain groups of people.
>
>
> Wojtek
>   
I wholeheartedly agree with your first point; if you want to understand 
cognitive processes, IQ tests are useless.  There is a lot of 
interesting research in cognitive psychology, and none of it involves IQ 
tests.  On the second point, I agree with Matt that you're exaggerating 
the prevalence of this gatekeeping function of standardized testing.  
Yes, for a small proportion of students applying to elite colleges, 
standardized tests help deny access to certain groups.  However, most 
college students can completely avoid this standardized testing by going 
to community colleges and/or many state colleges and universities that 
do not have SAT/ACT admission requirements.  In addition, it is 
currently illegal to use general standardized tests like the Stanford 
Binet in job selection procedures; any test must be directly related to 
the employee's specific job duties (e.g., a typing test for a 
secretary).  If we're trying to figure out why capable people are denied 
educational opportunities and jobs, vilifying IQ tests won't get us very 
far.

To explicate a point I made earlier in the thread, the lack of 
standardized assessment is a far more pressing social problem than the 
existence of standardized tests like the Stanford-Binet or the SAT.  If 
your goal is to deny capable people access to resources, you want to 
maintain subjective, anecdotal selection procedures; you do not want 
standardized assessment tools with high criterion related validity.  For 
instance, the job interview is a ubiquitous job selection procedure in 
our society.  Hiring authorities are adamant that they need to "look the 
person in the eye and talk to them face to face" to select the best 
candidate for the job.  Organizational psychologists have conducted 
decades of research to test this claim.  In study after study, they have 
found that job interviews are a miserable method for selecting effective 
employees.  People who perform well in interviews do not necessarily 
have the skills or motivation to excel in the job, and people who 
perform poorly in interviews often do have the skills and motivation to 
excel in the job.  In sum: the job interview ritual is an arbitrary, 
subjective procedure that denies opportunities to many capable 
individuals.  If we want to meaningfully challenge "elitism", we need to 
replace pointless procedures like the job interview with standardized 
assessments that have high criterion related validity. 

Miles

Miles