In this project, I took a psychology test to see how accurate they can be. I wanted to show the class how invalid these kinds of tests can be. For this assignment I took a Wechsler Intelligence test online. The link is https://wechslertest.com/. The test I took was 6 minutes long with a total of 25 questions. According to the website, it was developed as an alternative to the Binet intelligence test in the 1950s by psychologist David Wechsler. The test was advertised as an IQ test and the test I took was not a full-length Wechsler test, but a practice version you could take. Access to the full test required a purchase. The test was designed for adults, and although there is also a Wechsler test for children it was not offered on the site.
My results: First test: 67th percentile, finished 19/25 q’s Second test: 97th percentile, finished 25/25 qs The test seemed to be less credible in it’s online version. The Wechsler test itself is normally much larger than 25 questions and is designed to be led by a human tester. The online test was very difficult. However, when I took it again I did significantly better. This indicates a lack of reliability. It is easy to see how someone could practice to improve the score they got. The questions also showed bias. Questions included phrases and proverbs that were easy to misunderstand and there were a lot of word comprehension questions. Scores would definitely be impacted by the way people around you spoke. The questions were also all worded in very confusing ways which would be especially hard for English as a second language test takers. The site itself seemed credible and maybe the test you needed to pay for was better, but in my opinion this test was neither reliable or valid. It was too easy to manipulate the scores and the questions differed both times.
1 Comment
Mrs. Colpitts
6/1/2018 10:59:30 am
Excellent job Jasmin. I really like your background of the test as well as your critical analysis of the test's credibility, reliability and validity. 15/15
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Questions for further investigation:1. Are there any other defense mechanisms that we may not know about? |