Page 203 - DEDU504_EDUCATIONAL_MEASUREMENT_AND_EVALUATION_ENGLISH

Unit 16 : Factors Influencing Test Scores : Nature of Test, Psychological Factors and Environmental Factors

Environmental Factors that affect test include : modern media, education, breast feeding, womb Notes
conditions, butrition, pollution, nurture and parenting, prejudices and self belief, national culture,
head injuries, sleep problems, drug and alcohol abuse, mental illnesses, stress and diseases.

Modern Media
Modern Media forms including TV, film, computer games, electronic gadgets and devices, the
Internet and computer software are giving people a cognitive work out each time they participate
in these forms of modern media. Computer games, software and gadgets require great analytical
and logical thought and probing in order to be used to their entirety.
Television shows are becoming more complex with up to 18 threads happening at once often
spreading over multiple episodes are re-appearing at different times, compared to just 1 50 years
ago. The viewer is required to keep track of many threads at once. It is also becoming harder to
make sense of what is actually happening on the screen which as peoples analytical skills and
pattern recognition skills are being pushed.

Education
Increasing the time in education and quality of education before the critical limit and to a lesser
extent afterwards, has been shown to improve a person’s performance on an intelligence test.

Womb Conditions
High intakes of alchohol and drug use in mothers have been shown to significantly lower the IQ
of their children. Extent of prenatal exposure to marijuana affects development of intelligence
later in childhood.
Prolonged period of time without access to oxygen during the delivery can lead to brain damage
and mental retardation. Also, low birth weights have been linked to lower intelligence scores
later in lives of the children.

In a comprehensive study involving 11 studies and ouver 7000 children, children
who were breast fed were found to do 5.2 points better on IQ tests than children
who were not breastfed.

Nutrition
Poor nutrition, characterized by zinc, iron, vitamin B and protein deficiencies, leads to low IQ,
which leads to later antisocial behavior.
Pollution
Lead exposure has been proven to have significant effects on the develpment of a child’s
intelligence. In a long-term study done by Baghurst et al. 1992, children who grew up next to a
lead-smelting plant had significantly lower intelligence test scores, negatively correlated with
their blood-lead level exposure.

How Parental attitudes affect the child performance is test ?

Self Assessment

1. Fill in the blanks :
(i) Marks awarded by the teachers on a given test are test scores.

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