How Closely Does The SAT Correlate With IQ?

<p>Alright sorry for my misuse of "measure." You get my point. So the huge disparity between the IQ score and the SAT's estimate (sorry if I again employ the wrong vocabulary) is reasonable and within normal error?</p>

<p>I'd say the disparity would be present moreso if the writing score were taken into account, as it's the least g-loaded section of the exam.</p>

<p>^ Agreed. However, a huge disparity remains even when one ignores the W score in the situation that I previously detailed.</p>

<p>Even tests that are very strongly correlated (= for the most part sort test-takers into the same rank order) can still show HUGE differences in scores for some individual test-takers.</p>

<p>Well I suppose that that ^ is as good of an answer as exists. Thanks for your time!</p>

<p>SAT scores have nothing to do with IQ. They are most closely correlated with socioeconomic status. Rich people can buy expensive test prep to artificially increase scores.</p>

<p>[SAT</a> Scores and Family Income - Economix Blog - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/sat-scores-and-family-income/]SAT”>SAT Scores and Family Income - The New York Times)</p>

<p>Even if that’s not true, IQ is supposed to stay relatively fixed over time. Since SAT scores can change with test prep, they cannot be a reflection of IQ. </p>

<p>The old SAT was a reflection of IQ because there were not test prep books for it and hence advance preparation could not skew scores.</p>

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<p>Untrue. IQ score changes are a consistently replicated observation by many researchers, and a curious psychologist might well apply some research to the issue of how those changes happen.</p>

<p>IQ scores are sufficiently stable from one time of taking an IQ test to the next that most psychologists conclude that what is estimated by an IQ test can be regarded as a “trait” rather than a “state” of an individual test-taker. And yet IQ scores, especially in childhood, do vary over the course of a test-taker’s life, sometimes varying radically. Deviation IQ scoring was originally developed to make for more stability of scores over the course of childhood. Nonetheless, deviation IQs for children can also change considerably over the course of childhood (Pinneau 1961; Truch 1993, page 78; Howe 1998; Deary 2000, table 1.3). “Correlation studies of test scores provide actuarial data, applicable to group predictions. . . . Studies of individuals, on the other hand, may reveal large upward or downward shifts in test scores.” (Anastasi & Urbina 1997 p. 326).</p>

<p>For example, young people in the famous Lewis Terman longitudinal Genetic Studies of Genius (initial n=1,444 with n=643 in main study group) when tested at high school age (n=503) were found to have dropped 9 IQ points on average in Stanford-Binet IQ. More than two dozen children dropped by 15 IQ points and six by 25 points or more. Parents of those children reported no changes in their children or even that their children were getting brighter (Shurkin 1992, pp. 89-90). Terman observed a similar drop in IQ scores in his study group upon adult IQ testing (Shurkin 1992, pp. 147-150). Samuel R. Pinneau conducted a thorough review of the Berkeley Growth Study (1928-1946; initial n=61, n after eighteen years =40). Alice Moriarty was a Ph.D. researcher at the Menninger Foundation and describes in her book (1966) a number of case studies of longitudinal observations of children’s IQ. She observed several subjects whose childhood IQ varied markedly over the course of childhood, and develops hypotheses about why those IQ changes occurred. Anastasi and Urbina (1997, p. 328) point out that childhood IQ scores are poorest at predicting subsequent IQ scores when taken at preschool age. Change in scores over the course of childhood shows that there are powerful environmental effects on IQ (Anastasi & Urbina 1997, p. 327) or perhaps that IQ scores in childhood are not reliable estimates of a child’s scholastic ability.</p>

<p>REFERENCES</p>

<p>Anastasi, Anne & Urbina, Susana (1997). Psychological Testing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.</p>

<p>Deary, Ian J. (2000) Looking Down on Human Intelligence: From Psychometrics to the Brain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.</p>

<p>Howe, Michael J. A. (1998). Can IQ Change?. The Psychologist, February 1998 pages 69-72.</p>

<p>Moriarty, Alice E. (1966). Constancy and IQ Change: A Clinical View of Relationships between Tested IQ and Personality. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.</p>

<p>Pinneau, Samuel R. (1961). Changes in Intelligence Quotient Infancy to Maturity: New Insights from the Berkeley Growth Study with Implications for the Stanford-Binet Scales and Applications to Professional Practice. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.</p>

<p>Shurkin, Joel N. (1992). Terman’s Kids: The Groundbreaking Study of How the Gifted Grow Up. Boston: Little, Brown.</p>

<p>Truch, Steve (1993). The WISC-III(R) Companion: A Guide to Interpretation and Educational Intervention. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.</p>

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<p>This is also not what the psychological research says, really. I don’t have as many references for this point, but there is a body of research evidence that a test that everyone can prepare for (as, for example, a college entrance test that gives a sample test booklet to everyone who registers for the test) is a BETTER test of “intelligence” than a test that takes test-takers by surprise. This is an issue you can do more research about.</p>

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<p>I agree with this, but the SAT is not an intelligience test, can never be one, and will never be one. The ACT might as well become an intelligience test now, jesus.</p>

<p>tokenadult: i absolutely agree with the research that you’re citing, but it doesn’t disprove my argument. The research you cited compares IQ in childhood versus adulthood and early childhood versus late childhood, not over the short period of time between SAT sittings (junior year versus senior year). Even if IQ can shift over a couple decades, its unlikely to change over a couple years. Hence, large SAT increases over short periods of time are unexplainable if SAT is a reflection of IQ, since such large changes in IQ are not possible over short periods of time. Also, granting the work of Terman and related researchers only means that IQ <em>can</em> change over time. This, however, in no may means that the SAT can <em>cause</em> this change or even be correlated to it. </p>

<p>Further, your argument that it is a better test for “intelligence” may also be true, but it doesn’t prove that the SAT measures IQ. IQ is measures intelligence if and only if intelligence is defined as “mental agility” and is content neutral. The scholars that claim that SATs better measure intelligence define intelligence differently. They tend to argue that intelligence should be a pragmatic application of content knowledge. Hence, the conclusions made by the authors you paraphrase are not inconsistent with the claim that the SAT does not measure IQ. </p>

<p>This is horribly classist. Look, I have pretty much perfect SAT scores. But I only have them because I’m wealthy enough to afford SAT prep classes and books to help me prepare. Are poor people less intelligent? No. Yet, they consistently score lower on the SAT and score approximately equally on IQ because they cant afford SAT test prep. The SAT is NOT a measure of IQ.</p>

<p>Who resurrected this?</p>

<p>minimal correlation, but absolutely no causality. You don’t necessarily have to be “intelligent” to do well, but if you’re mentally ■■■■■■■■… </p>

<p>Now, let this die.</p>

<p>the SAT is at best, a very very general indicator of the region your IQ may fall in</p>

<p>why are you guys debating this topic? IQ and SAT are two different things, The College Board states that the SAT measures literacy and writing skills that are needed for academic success in college. They state that the SAT assesses how well the test takers analyze and solve problems—skills they learned in school that they will need in college.</p>

<p>I don’t understand the importance people put on “IQ”. Instead of saying that the SAT fails to measure a person’s IQ, why aren’t we saying that IQ tests fail to measure a person’s performance on the SAT? For all we know, the SAT might very well be a better prediction of a person’s future success.</p>