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Educational Measurement and Evaluation

Notes Self Assessment

1. Fill in the blanks :
(i) Relative significance of any given score is known as ______ .
(ii) An individual’s ______ on a test designates the percentage of cases or scores lying below
it.
(iii) ______ signifies a range of scores between two dividing points.
(iv) An individual’s ______ indicates rate of mental development or degree of brighness.
(Intelligence quotient)
(v) The ______ is especially useful at age levels above 16 or 18 years.

13.2 Qualitative Interpretation of Test Scores

Assume that three boys, all of the same age, have been tested. Suppose that their intelligence
quotients are 50, 100, and 150. Since these are numerical ratios (MA/CA × 100), it is natural to
assume that they have a quantitative significance. So they do—for they indicate rate of mental
development. But these quotients also have a qualitative significance—for, among other things,
they indicate each boy’s position in the “hierarchy of intelligence.” If the measure of intelligence
is valid, the boy having the IQ of 50 is seriously retarded and is in the lowest one percent of the
population in respect to the psychological functions being tested; the boy with the IQ of 100 is the
typical or average individual, midway up (or down) in the distribution of intelligence; and the
boy having the IQ of 150 is very superior and belongs in the top percentile rank of the group.

Qualitative significance of the intelligence quotient can be illustrated further by asking this
question : Is the brightest of these three boys one and one-half times as intelligent as the average
boy, and three times as intelligent as the retarded one ? This question cannot be answered in
terms of numbers; it is impossible to say how many “times” more capable or less capable one is
than the others, because the IQ is not a percent. But each of these quotients has certain connotations.
In this example, the qualified school or clinical psychologist will be able to draw important
inferences from each boy’s IQ regarding rate and quality of school leveling, extent and level of
educability, vocational possibilities and levels, and probable types of interests.
The boy with an IQ of 50 probably will not be able to complete more than the second grade; the
boy having the IQ of 100 should be able to complete twelve grades; the boy with an IQ of 150
will be able to progress in education as far as his interests and motives indicate. Obviously, too,
the kinds of occupations that will be open to the first boy are very limited; those open to the
second will be numerous; those open to the third will be practically unrestricted, so far as mental
capacity is concerned. And the same may be said of the range of interests in general that will be
within the scope of each. These facts are of educational and clinical significance, but at present
there are no psychological or statistical means whereby one can calculate how many times more
or less capable one person is than another.
Caution is necessary at this point. The inferences drawn in the preceding paragraph cannot be
based solely upon the numerical IQ value without reference to the clinical features in the test
performances or other factors not shown by the numerical index. We have assumed that there are
no complicating factors and that the IQs are valid measures of the capacities and performances of
the three boys. The boy with 150 IQ, however, might be an unstable personality who is failing in
many or all of his school subjects. The boy with 100 IQ might have been penalized on the test by a
language handicap. And the boy with an IQ of 50 might show a “scatter” (inconsistency and
variation) of performance indicating emotional disturbance rather than intellectual
impoverishment. Occasionally, also, it will be found that a high test rating may be attributable to
an inconsistently high level of performance on one or a few types of subtests (for example,

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