Behind the Classroom Door; 27

The topic on this week's Behind the classroom door from Northern Illinois University is college of education is what's the meeting of the IQ. Here's the moderator Dean Robert F. top. What is the meaning of IQ particularly terribly subject for us today gentleman. Because this seems to be a lively topic of conversation everywhere. In fact it's almost become a household word we hear mothers and fathers using the term I.Q. and even little children. And then we have repeatedly in these conversations behind the classroom door referred to IQ because it plays a pretty basic an important role in our understanding of children. Well what is a common meaning of IQ. Not to Leonard. Would you try that a little bit. Well an IQ score does not represent an exact amount of anything. For example a person with an IQ of 140 he's not twice as bright as a person with an IQ of 70. Each IQ point represents no definite unit to which a division of some measuring rod could

correspond. And I don't I know that we don't know what a zero IQ really is or what sort of what's the average what's how do they determine average or normal IQ. Well I think what we usually think of an average IQ is being 100. You know I mean usually you know 90 90 to about 100 in town. Right. Within That's an average normal range and above that a person has a little headstart perhaps in whatever IQ means which are going to get out sooner or later below that perhaps some interference with learning. I think studies have revealed that girls get slightly higher IQ than boys do in the elementary school. This may be attributable to some of these other factors though don't you think we hasten to come to the defense of boys it seems to me. That most studies indicate that there is no significant difference between the I.Q. zoo girls and boys.

In spite of the fact that boys don't seem to do it well in school in terms of the grades they get. This will be the subject of a future discussion however. Perhaps the idea that the IQ is largely a verbal test and girls do seem to acquire verbal skills sooner than boys in the elementary school would enable them to score higher on a verbal test and that's an important point. Dr. Fox Some people think if you have a high IQ or your success is assured of the success of your children is assured when the fact of the matter is it's merely a measure of verbal or abstract ability ability and there are a lot of other qualities involved in what contributes to success in life. I might point out that the IQ test that's used most commonly in the public schools today is a paper and pencil tests not the words as written. So what it's testing is scholastic ability or the ability to succeed in school. While there is no a test

yet available that will test such things as motivation drive values application or the amount of energy which a child is willing to put into a song task. I think when you do determine an IQ you have to use the intermediary meanings of assuming that the individual had the skills necessary. And assuming that it had a wide enough range of experiences to have had a chance to learn these things that are the questions that are ashen of course if. If an intelligence test were designed for let's say children in the United States and you were to try to apply it to Eskimo children. You know results of course would be completely wrong you'd have to design an entirely different intelligence test based on the commonly encountered experiences of the Eskimo children.

The test is usually given in a classroom always a group test. A teacher can give it to a large number of children at one time. Yet want a real accurate measure of intelligence is necessary for the placement of a child say in a special room. For the mentally retarded or something like that. Then the individual intelligence test is given where the examiner will give just a single test to one child at a time and face to face situation. This is considered a more accurate measure than the group intelligence test. However little would you recommend placing a child in a special class on the basis of any single criterion even an individualized IQ test. While I think before the. Test is given to a child a teacher must have some reason to suspect that this child is not achieving in school the way. The child should.

A lot of things have to be cleared don't they Dr. Laughlin you don't want to clear the child's physical health for example and his vision his hearing. I'm sure that many a teacher is thought initially that the child was not sufficiently high intelligence to do the work only to discover that it was a hearing problem. And furthermore one test alone won't do it. I have a feeling that before that important decision is made that many tests are administered and interviews with experts in all of these other possible interferences with the full operation of the intelligence are checked out. It may sound is over somewhat negative I think in terms of the I.Q. but what we're saying is that the I.Q. is one e and X of a person's ability to do classroom work. And if it's used in conjunction with other criteria it can be a very helpful and x. I would even say the IQ means more than that. And we don't want to deprecate the IQ

because this is one of the key feet figure is one of those key instruments if you refer to the test that we must use but use with. Some conservative concern for its proper application and for interference with a measure of it. I might mention the school's Nala days do have formal testing programs and these testing programs usually consist of a series of achievement tests which test reading mathematics spelling and other subject matter areas as well as these intelligence tests and. The. Types of tests will give a teacher a lot of information to use in. Studying the child and attempting to meet the child's needs. But they must be used hand in hand. Hasn't criticism been made a little bit. Actually an intelligence test is an achievement test and therefore when you

give IQ tests that achievement test you're testing essentially the same thing and that's how well a child achieves in a school situation. Well I think that has been done quite frequently where the items of common intelligence tests have been compared with items in an achievement test and it is found that there is a high degree of similarity between the two tests. Yes but it is not particularly to measure the extent of achievement or no age at that that the child has an achievement test much must have sufficient difficulty or depth. So that you may hear the ultimate level the highest level of each child involved in this test. Whereas an intelligence test which obviously uses some factual materials is based upon. The facts that are ordinarily acquired quite easily. Quite regularly that surround the individual in life. For example the B'nai individual test uses the

repetition of digits numbers while the child has to know how to count and he has to know numbers quite Reg quite easily. But this is something that any child knows from fourth grade up or so. There are also some of the test questions will be based on commonly encountered elements in the environment of the child and of course he has to have lived in the environment where he had a chance to acquire the so although it relates closely to achievement tests and is based on some kind of achievement. Its not identical. And there's no other way to do it. It would be wonderful if we could put a caliper on somebodies head or somehow or other measure the brainwaves and come up with an exact measure of that intellectual ability we're trying to describe here. However even with your example before the Eskimo. We have minority groups in this country who would have to suffer from a culture bias and the type of test you're describing and perhaps we would

not be able to get a correct IQ. On individuals who have come from a minority group. Well actually this is been one of the problems in the employment of men for certain types of occupations when they have come from a culturally deprived environment. But I think the environment has to differ quite remarkably from. The typical environment before it affects the IQ simply because the things that surround the individual in that typical environment. Are quite similar. No we're missing one of the thing though and that is. While I think most people could agree that intellectual ability per se is inherited. But the extent to which one attains his maximum intellectually efficiency which in a way is IQ is dependent on the environment that the individual has so that if he is

surrounded by books and TV and in good conversation and has many experiences in his life his IQ will move up normally in harmony with his inherited levels. If he is not as those children on the barges in England you remember the classic study where children lived on barges all their lives and the longer they lived on those barges the lower their IQ is became. I think that's why some of our programmes such as Project Head Start which takes children from lower socio economic levels and has begun school early pre-primary find that the eye queues of the children involved actually increase. And that's because those children have suffered from a poor home environment and starting to flower all of the sudden they're starting to acquire the tools of learning. Now we hear teachers and people talk about the bright child in school

and the dull child in school. And earlier we talk about the average child. What do you people. Where do you feel the need the classification begins for like a bright child in school. What kind of an IQ would you think you need in order to be called a bright child. Well doesn't it depend on a lot on school. I mean in some schools you're always dealing I think with a fixed population and some schools an individual may be bright who is simply high average or a hundred town above you know other schools because you're drawing from a higher social economic level on the IQ those tend to be higher and that type of an environment. You may need an IQ of 100 and 30 year a hundred forty eight to even be above average. But generally speaking don't you think. Lloyd. One ought to have an IQ of 90 with a lot of

motivation because this individual is going to have to work very hard to finish a high school diploma. And I would say that one ought to have an IQ of perhaps one hundred ten to finish a baccalaureate degree. A lot I have personally tested people at the college level who finished a baccalaureate degree with an IQ of 95. But these people are working very very hard then to go on higher to the doctoral level. M.D. or perhaps law or the Ph.D. here I suppose an IQ a reasonable IQ should be a hundred twenty or Bob. And yet again we would have to agree. That the element mentioned earlier by Dean Fox is so significant here and that is motivation. Seriousness of purpose. For this reason we don't see grades at the college level.

A green correlating very closely with IQ because motivation enters it and I think if it were so option that a child has of himself is very important that a child may have an IQ that is high. But if he has a very poor self-concept I think this interferes with the learning. So that again there would be other criteria that you would have to consider in determining whether an individual would go on to be an M.D. rather than just as IQ. I'm certain that. There are individuals who have low IQ Jews who have managed to get through medical school as OP indicated largely on the basis of motivation but perhaps through other personal qualities that they have that enables them to compete with people who actually have higher and Haron intelligence than they do. I found it ok recently a teacher will be fooled by a child to

achievement. When they think that the child has an average IQ the child may find out later the child has less than an average IQ because of his persistency his. I had a most interesting case like that a jr high school girl who was the class president and her grades were practically straight away and then we we discovered that her IQ tests were showing that she was about 90 IQ even had an 85 on one. But we assumed after these tests that the IQ was in the vicinity of 90 to 100 to 95 90 to 95. We checked out all elements that we could the possibility of vision or something interfering with the test situation. And she had been ill or anything repeated the test you know it was a valid and reliable measure. She was a daughter of a college professor and had other older brothers and sisters who had done very well in

school. When this girl was so highly motivated. And she was so personable she was charming. And she was working very very hard. Having established scholarly pattern in her home that she was making A's and of course had also the social success to go along with it. No I was worried about her future reaction to college work. However when she got through high school and moved on into college I felt the time would come when she'd have a great deal of difficulty in college and we talked with the parents and tried to get them ready for this possibility that might exist. In other words she was making up at this level through extra effort and motivation and it was possible to do so at the jr high school level. Perhaps even the high school level. But as she went on to college and her parents perhaps were ambitious to have her finish a doctor's degree she might not make it and it would be a shame to have this girl pushed beyond

her academic limits in this way. Both of you are mentioning that teachers are surprise occasionally when they find out the child has an IQ that is lower. Than their achievement would seem to be any good. And I wonder. What happens to a teacher when the teacher has a false impression of what a child's ability is a city term in the way the teacher actually treats that child and what the child's achievement on be affected adversely. I think it was Dr. Byock It would be a very good teacher. Who would not be able to use tests that he had in his possession about the child and observations that he was able to make that prove that the child was was not as dollar let's say as he thought initially. To let this affect his treatment of the child. In fact this is the purpose of tests to to extend the ability of the

teacher to observe and evaluate the child. Bob and Ray I think you've been talking about on the usuals cases here. I think studies have shown that the high ability child is not only talented academically but he's also talented in many other ways. The high IQ child commonly as. Well. He has good muscular coordination in other words you'd be good in athletics. You might have musical ability you know. Good. Physical constitution but he's not only get gifted intellectually but he's gifted in many other ways so that. Teachers usually can recognize the well-organized high ability child. It's odd how perhaps it's out of envy but it's odd how we will say sometimes well he's bright but he's maladjusted or he's right intellectually but he is not good neuro muscular only we see these cases and they

stand out and therefore we make the generalizations. And it's just not true. On the other hand we can't say that these good things go together completely that you can conclude that because a person is right he's also going to be socially adept. But you're right Leo and making the point that it seems as though good things go together and not so good things go together. And this is what a teacher or a parent faces in each instance. I think to that. Leo if you break down IQ into. Three components that we seem to usually consider the social intelligence the abstract intelligence mechanical intelligence that may be true that at the beginning an individual tends to be highly correlated in other words as scores in those three areas would be highly correlated. But because he is forced to go one direction or the other

he may not be valid in all three of those areas I think. Certainly there are people who have very high mechanical aptitude and develop that mechanical aptitude who neglect their development of abstract intelligence so that the other way around certainly there are people who have very high. Academic intelligence or abstract intelligence who seem to be almost idiots when it comes to anything mechanical. You know it's funny how we generalize this way isn't it. We'll even say to our child who isn't doing so well in the arithmetic. Well I wasn't very good new arithmetic either. Even though the child has a high IQ and can do well in the arithmetic if motivated it just is not true that the child who has a reasonably high IQ can't do some of the things

that have been mentioned. And I think re your point is well taken they may get interested in something that's close to their highest ability and therefore not move into the other area. I remember a child with an IQ of 100 64 and he couldn't throw a ball 20 feet because all along he was interested in reading and sitting around and demonstrating his scholastic ability. How did that challenge just to the school situation to you. Well I remember him very clearly. He didn't adjust at all to the school situation he wasn't liked by his fellow students he was arrogant. This started by serious mistakes the parents made. They discovered that he was a bright very bright when he was four years of age and had taught himself to read. And so he was reading out of encyclopedias by the time he came to kindergarten. This created quite a problem as you can imagine. And it would have been bad if he did other things too. But as a result of this concentration on a very narrow area this boy was

maladjusted throughout his life and actually alternately spent some time in an institution because of the serious emotional and social maladjustment hasn't there been some research to show that the very highly gifted intellectually gifted child probably will have trouble adjusting to the typical school situation. Well he can have trouble I guess because it doesn't motivate him enough. But still teachers should again get at this and they should have sufficient materials so they can keep this boy or girl moving ahead of his own rate and they've got to forget the routines that most of the children are following. I think that old stereotype picture of the high IQ youngster is. No longer pertinent. We have heard him described as somebody who wears thick glasses and sits around reading books all day long. Well that that just is not true. The high above look the youngster. Is talented in many other areas and

generally has a wide variety of interests. I think the exception stands out to LEO and therefore when you do have an exceptional case of someone who's very bright scholastically but doesn't seem to be athletically inclined and may be somewhat of a social misfit people point at him but he is the exception and certainly the generalization would be that these things are correlated and there is a high relationship between them and therefore the individual would tend to be a well-rounded person. I think the term and 30 year study of gifted children certainly indicated that in most aspects they were at least at the same level as people within the average range and many were superior to people in the average range. I think earlier we decided that they're worth reading you know a significant difference between boys and

girls and IQ. Particularly at the elementary school level and probably at the high school level but you frequently hear people say that boys seem to catch up and surpass girls in IQ is at the high school level out there must be a reason for that too I think. Lloyd one of those things mentioned earlier that because a test tends to be largely verbal and we do have evidence of girls acquire verbal skills sooner than boys early in school a girl would tend to perform better on any verbal measure. It's a generalization because obviously some boys would perform better than some girls. But as a group I think girls would perform better than as you go through school and the boys tend to catch up. And by the time they're into the Senior High School in many cases may surpass. Boy the girls I think also that many verbal tests

tend to emphasize science areas and mathematics areas and even though a girl may have aptitude in those areas in our culture the interest of girls does not seem to be as great in the areas of science and mathematics. So on those parts of the tests boys may actually surpass the girls I think we have to recognize that even though we approach the measure of IQ with due concern to things it can interfere. But this is a basic measure that has many applications to teaching and if the parent with the child's IQ would have many applications to the parents relationship with the child. I don't think we ever should ask a child to do something. Which he is not capable of doing. And I wonder if sometimes. In some schools where intelligence tests may not be administered we aren't requiring of all children the same level of achievement and perhaps failing him each day or at the close of the

year and doing this repeatedly because somehow or other he can't do it. We can't do it because he doesn't have that particular set of qualities verbal qualities. Actually there are ways to get the maximum IQ out of your child and we got some suggestions to make with regard to this how can you develop the maximum IQ that your child may possess. I think one you've already touched on and that is that we have to make certain that when a child goes to school he isn't confronted with failure after failure. And if that does occur I think a self-concept become so poor that it becomes extremely difficult for the individual to succeed. So one suggestion that I would make is to make certain that within the home and within the school every child has an opportunity for success. But he will have success and some of his endeavors. And I think that success tends to motivate the individual and may

help him great deal and long term achievement. I think a rich environment is very important. I think with a child without an IQ without a TV set in their home is handicap not age. Yes just one of the things I want to mention that is that I think one reason why boys seem to catch up and surpass girls at the high school level is because your low IQ boys tend to drop out of school during high school years while you're in the like you girls tend to stay at maybe one of the reasons Well we've tried I think to present a well balanced point of view toward using this critical measure a measure of abstract verbal ability that we call intelligence quotient. I think all of us parents and teachers alike need to approach it cautiously not feel too boastful of our sorrow happens to have a high IQ and not feel too depressed if he happens to have not such a high IQ.

In other words a critical measure that we must understand and use wisely behind the classroom door produced by W when are you after. In cooperation with the College of Education at Northern Illinois University each week focuses its attention on one of the many challenging aspects of public school education. The program is moderated by Dr. Robert F. top dean of the College of Education at Northern Illinois University. Today's guest were Dr. Raymond B Fox associate dean of the College of Education. Dr. Leo Laughlin head of the Department of Administration and services and Dr. Lloyd Leonard head of the department of elementary education. Next week's topic will be why do boys got lower grades than girls. This program is distributed by the national educational radio network.