How Children Develop 5th Edition By Siegler – Test Bank

How Children Develop 5th Edition By Siegler – Test Bank

1. Describe the controversy about how intelligence should be defined. What resolution has been proposed by John Carroll?

2. You have learned a great deal about several theories of intelligence, including traditional theories and alternative theories. The theories vary in terms of the domains and skills involved, as well as their specificity versus generality. What is your own view of intelligence? Provide a detailed description of your perspective along with an argument about why your perspective is correct.

3. What is an IQ? Describe how IQ scores are computed. Why are IQ scores calculated in this manner? What is the advantage to this method of computation?

4. Define practical intelligence and give an example of it. Explain the relationships among practical intelligence, IQ, and occupational success.

5. Think about your fellow students in high school or college. Describe two of them, one whose IQ score (at least your assumption of it) is consistent with his or her grades in the way in which you would expect, and one whose IQ score is less consistent with his or her grades. For the person whose IQ score is less consistent with his or her grades, explain the inconsistency. What other factors appear to have an influence on grades for this person?

6. A school principal who is interested in the impact of schooling on children’s IQ scores needs to acquire evidence for the relationship between schooling and intelligence. Write a brief review of the relevant research on the topic.

7. Describe the phenomenon known as the Flynn effect. Give a detailed explanation of why you believe this phenomenon has occurred. Are there any alternative explanations? Why or why not?

8. Describe Sternberg’s theory of successful intelligence. What does he propose is included in successful intelligence?

9. Describe the prereading skills that are associated with later reading ability. Are these prereading skills causally related to later reading ability? Explain the causal or correlational associations.

10. Kayla hates math. She avoids it at all costs and does not think she is good at math. Explain what is going on with Kayla and why.

Answer Key

1. There are various ways in which intelligence is defined. For instance, some view intelligence as a single trait, such as general intelligence. Others hold that there are two different types of intelligence, fluid intelligence and crystalized intelligence. Fluid intelligence is the ability to think on the spot to solve novel problems where crystalized intelligence is factual knowledge about the world. Yet a third view holds that intelligence is comprised of numerous, distinct processes. These processes include remembering, perceiving, attending, comprehending, encoding, associating, generalizing, planning, reasoning, and so on. To help resolve these competing theories, John B. Carroll proposed the three-stratum theory of intelligence. At the top of the hierarchy is general intelligence, fluid and crystalized intelligence are in the middle, and at the bottom are many specific processes.
2. Answers for this item will vary considering that students need to provide their own view of intelligence. Students may discuss a single trait of intelligence (general intelligence), two types of intelligence (fluid and crystalized intelligence), or even John B. Carroll’s three-stratum theory of intelligence. They may also discuss some of the alternative views on intelligence, such as Gardner’s theory or Sternberg’s theory.
3. IQ is an abbreviation for intelligence quotient. It is a quantitative measure, typically with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. It is used to indicate a child’s intelligence relative to that of other children of the same age. Early developers of intelligence tests observed that many easy-to-measure fall into a normal distribution, which is symmetrical around a mean (average) value, with most scores falling relatively near the mean. The farther a score is from the mean, the smaller the percentage of people who obtain it. The normal distribution found in intelligence test scores of children of a given age means that most IQ scores are close to the mean, with relatively few children obtaining very high or very low scores. Early designers of IQ tests made an arbitrary decision that has been maintained ever since: a score of 100 is given to children who score exactly at the mean for their age at the time the test is developed. IQ scores also reflect the standard deviation, which is 15 for most IQ tests. An advantage of this scoring system is that IQ scores at different ages are easy to compare, despite the great increases in knowledge that accompany development in all children.
4. Practical intelligence can be defined as skills useful in everyday life but not measured by traditional intelligence tests. This may include accurately reading other people’s intentions and motivating others to work effectively as a team. Research has shown that practical intelligence predicts occupational success beyond the influence of IQ score.
5. Answers for this question will vary. However, students should discuss other factors that can predict success when discussing the student who earned high academic grades but they considered to have low intelligence. Other factors include practical intelligence, environmental characteristics, and motivation level. They could also discuss the importance of general intelligence in terms of the person whose academic grades did not reflect their high level of intelligence.
6. Attending school makes children smarter. One type of evidence for this comes from a study that examined IQ scores of older and younger Israeli children within the 4th, 5th, and 6th grades. Older children within each grade did somewhat better than younger children within that grade on each part of the test. However, children who were only slightly older, but who had a year more schooling, did much better than the slightly younger children in the grade below them. The positive effects of education on IQ scores is a result of education increasing several specific cognitive skills measured on IQ tests, such as inferential reasoning and logical memory. Additionally, average IQ and achievement test scores rise during the school year but not during summer vacation.
7. The Flynn effect is a consistent rise in average IQ scores that has occurred over the past 80 years in many countries. The cause of the Flynn effect remains controversial. Some researchers argue that the key factors are improvements in the lives of low-income families, such as improved nutrition, health, and education. Another explanation is increased societal emphasis on abstract problem solving and reasoning.
8. Robert Sternberg’s theory of successful intelligence envisions intelligence as “the ability to achieve success in life, given one’s personal standards, within one’s sociocultural context.” In his view, success in life reflects people’s ability to build on their strengths, to compensate for their weaknesses, and to select environments in which they can succeed. Sternberg proposed that success in life depends on three types of abilities: analytic, practical, and creative. Analytic abilities involve the linguistic, mathematical, and spatial skills that are measured by traditional intelligence tests. Practical abilities involve reasoning about everyday problems, such as how to resolve conflicts with other people. Creative abilities involve intellectual flexibility and innovation that allow adaptation to novel circumstances.
9. Preschoolers acquire certain basic information about reading just from looking at books and having their parents read to them. They learn that text is read from left to right; that, after they reach the right end of a line, the text continues at the extreme left of the line below; and that words are separated by small spaces. Children of educated parents also learn the names of most letters in the alphabet. While this knowledge is positively correlated with reading achievement in middle school, it is not a causal relationship. Other factors, such as children’s interest in books and parents’ interest in their children’s reading, stimulate both early knowledge of the alphabet and later high reading achievement. Phonemic awareness both correlated and the cause of later reading achievement.
10. Kayla is demonstrating mathematics anxiety, a negative emotional state that leads to fear and avoidance of math. This could have developed as early as 1st grade and may cause lifelong problems for her. There are many reasons for mathematics anxiety including the unambiguous right/wrong status of answers to many mathematics problems, the widespread belief that mathematics is closely linked to intelligence, and the frustrating periods with no apparent progress that mathematics learning often entails. Mathematics anxiety is more common in girls than boys and among those who do poorly in math. It can also be taught by parents and teachers who themselves are anxious about mathematics.