Assessing Intelligence with Standardized Testing Has a Limited Purpose, with Howard Gardner
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- Опубликовано: 1 янв 2025
- Assessing Intelligence with Standardized Testing Has a Limited Purpose,
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You can apply this to almost every field and human pursuit and it’s still true: too much of one thing rarely yields a positive outcome. Scott Barry Kaufman, scientific director of The Imagination Institute, thinks the US has fallen into this trap with standardized testing, which lacks insight into the breadth of intelligence.
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SCOTT BARRY KAUFMAN:
Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D., is scientific director of the Imagination Institute in the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, where he investigates the measurement and development of intelligence, imagination, and creativity. He has written or edited six previous books, including Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined. He is also co-founder of The Creativity Post, host of The Psychology Podcast, and he writes the blog Beautiful Minds for Scientific American. Kaufman lives in Philadelphia and completed his doctorate in cognitive psychology from Yale University in 2009 and received his masters degree in experimental psychology from Cambridge University in 2005, where he was a Gates Cambridge Scholar.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Scott Barry Kaufman: The idea of what we should be testing is a very hotly debated because there’s a certain objectivity that we think we have once we standardize things. We give the same test to everyone. And there is some truth to that that the more you standardize a test the more you kind of give everyone the same opportunity to perform on that test. So there is some argument to be made towards standardization. But we don’t have standardized minds. I mean no one has a standardized mind. There’s no such thing as an average mind. So every one of us, every unique individual is a dynamic system of not just cognitive processes but motivational processes, dreams, desires. I formulated a theory and I called it the theory of personal intelligence because I argued I wanted to shift our focus of analysis from taking one aspect that we are saying this is the measure of intelligence whether it’s a standardized test or whether it’s an IQ test. We say well we’ve decided as a society that’s our measure of intelligence. And then we compare everyone to each other on that one metric.
I wanted to move it to a personal level and recognize that well within a person every single one of us has a combination of traits and we can compensate for lower levels of one trait with higher levels of another trait. For instance we can compensate with lower levels of IQ with grit or with perseverance. So we’re capable of mixing and matching our own unique profile of characteristics in such really fascinating exciting ways that make us who we are. That’s what makes us a whole person. So when it comes to testing I’m not necessarily against testing and not necessarily against using standardized tests as a way of measuring learning outcomes. But as a way of measuring human potential I’m not down with that.
A really great report came out recently called Talent on the Sidelines which found very clearly that our ethnic minority students, ethnic and racial minority students are not being identified in gifted and talented programs period. And we need to call this out. We need to make this - there are some wonderful researchers here trying to correct this. Like Julia Lawson Davis for instance trying to figure out what is going on there, what we can do. You know when you have very poverty stricken environments for instance it’s not as easy to get the opportunity to display your brilliance. It’s not as easy to learn when people all around you are dying. When you are not being fed, you know. It’s very hard to show your intellectual brilliance. It is a fact that there’s a huge underrepresentation of ethnic and racial minority students in gifted talented education. And I do not believe that ethnic and racial minority students are less gifted. I mean who wants to make that argument. It is not the reality of the matter. And what you find there are some really neat programs.
For instance this one program called Project Bright where they taught gifted behaviors to every student. So they assumed well everyone in this school system was going to learn something from behaviors that gifted students tend to have. They kind of tried to distill how do gifted students think, you know, and can we teach this. And they taught every student in the school and they thought after teaching it like 25 percent or so mor...
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You’re fantastic Dr. Gardner! The part in the end, about negative and positive narcissism was very interesting! and how it relates to parents helping children find their intelligence/what they are good at/what interests them. I’ve never heard such a thing about two different types of narcissism, only that there was one kind!
Standardized tests are good measures of linear reasoning. Scores are good reflections of sentence to sentence learning.
This is fabulous!
In my country is illegal to do Standardized Testing in schools with more of the 25% in the evaluation scale in a test... AND, only if the teacher wants to do it that 25% in that way, other kind of questions for that 25% would be: name the term from a concept given, write definitions of terms, etc (the easy part). The rest of the percentages are 50% in middle difficulty questions and the other 25% is for greater difficulty questions. We only use Standardized Testing for academic aptitude tests and college admission process.
Thank you for this @howardgardner!
You're a very well spoken and knowledgeable orator sir.
The problem with standardized tests (the way they are implemented nowadays anyway) is that teachers wind up teaching to the test. This comes at a severe cost to the educational quality for the students. The best way to both tailor education to the needs of the child AND simultaneously reward good teachers and methods is to enable school choice. Let the parents and students grade teacher performance by voting with their feet. The student's education will improve automatically, no testing required.
+Peter Cohen You have too much faith in the parents and the students
+Lucier123456 I have zero faith in a monopoly that won't fire bad teachers. So by comparison, any faith I have in parents and students will be infinitely greater.
+Peter Cohen A lot of parents just care if the kid pass so he can have is degree.... same goes for the kid obviously. I am not saying the way it is right now is perfect. We should find a way to reward good teaching but saying the parents and the kids are the best judge for that is just blindly ignoring human nature.
Multiple intelligences theory is problematic because when you construct tests for these different "intelligences", you find that they're positively correlated. The g factor is so ubiquitous that trying to deny it is just getting delusional. But I agree with the general principle, since there are exceptions to the rule even if the correlations exist.
+Sacratease I'm not an expert but my understanding is that they actually are. I think exceptions to the rule and stereotypes stand out in our eyes. Also, lots of social skills are probably the product of practice, context, and personality; I'm not sure if it's like nerds don't understand the logic and theory behind social networks.
(Cont) I think it's important to note that general correlations don't mean that it's an absolute law or that there aren't other variables like exposure.
Just to throw this in, I consider myself a smart person and I used to be bad with socializing. Eventually I figured it out mostly by not being stupid. Whereas I know many socially awkward people with a surprisingly lot of experience in social situations. Most "socially intelligent" people are not stupid in terms of traditional intelligence tests.
***** actually it's a misconseption that savants or autists are good at math. They are usually good at calculus. Calculus is calculating values from equations while math is much much more abstract.
+Jonathan Zargosky (J.Z.) I know, I don't see how it contradicts what I was saying, which is that these alleged intelligences are correlated with one another and therefore aren't independent.
It measures the kind of intelligence that's useful to society. Great!
On point!
I actually understood everything he talked about
As an M.Ed who has taken graduate level Assessments and Testing course and my 7 years experience in the growing field of Instructional Design I would like to add something here. The most common mistakes I see professors make while creating their tests is that there are questions on the test that are simply not in the material being taught. For a test to be "Valid" and "Reliable" the student should be introduced to the concept on the test. As for standardized tests (such as FCAT in Florida), the problem is that normally neither the students nor the teachers know what will be on the test, thus there is no way to actually study for it. Also, these tests are not given back to see what they missed so the student can see what they did wrong and correct it. This not pedagogically correct, nor is it fair to base passing or failing of the students, or the merit pay or dismissal of teachers. They test are also culturally and regionally bias, but that is a whole other ball of wax.
finally a better , not pointless video
What people need is to change their views about Education. You Gotta Change your Perspective man if you want the long term benefits of education...... Education is merely a Tool that will help you prepare for Life & its definitely not the end of the process of anything. Education is Life Long and Not just Limited to Formal Institutes and Testing. The World Needs a Revolution and A Change of Perspective....
There is another variant. Both parents were bad at gymnastics. So they think their kids must hate it to. Inverse negative narcisism lol.
I think we should have a test that isn’t required to take but recommended just to put on a path on something you want to do and, or you’re good at. That way people won’t be so stressed out, because it’s impossible to fail
My biggest complaint is they don't assess creative thinking. Instead the tests are designed around conformity thinking. You must answer only one way because it's what the authorities have taught. It's designed to suppress independent free thinking and encourage obedience and submission to authority.
Professor Gardner,
I wonder what your opinion is on the constituents of intelligence. In my view, emotions seem to be an important factor of intelligence. I know emotions are irrational but it's people like you whom remind people like me that humans are driven by unconscious forces that remain invisible beneath consciousness. Emotions bubble up from old memories. There is far too much to hold in our mind (or working memory) to be able to make choices without becoming overwhelmed, yet we know they are there and they motivate us to take certain actions and guide us towards certain pathways. Our admiration or disgust of an object gives rise to attention. Fascination with a subject prolongs attention and the more we gather related stimuli and pull them into focus from the margins the more we detect patterns. Pattern detection and recognition is critical for problem solving. It is critical for problem finding and problem framing.
MinMaxing clearly leads to optimum child.
+JustOneAsbesto lol
I still hope my child likes guitars cause that would be a dream come true. We could play together.
All students should be given personality tests and also IQ tests.
"Nowhere is it written that they must learn it in the same way."
As much as I agree with this video, yes it is. CPM (college preparatory mathematics,) will teach several different methods of solving one problem. . .and then tell you you have to use a certain method on tests or it's wrong, even if the answer is correct.
S t a n d a r d i z e d testing.
I've never experienced it saying you have to solve a problem one way.
I'd like to have known about your work 30 years ago.
....my child is chasing the girls through the park.
Lesson learned: Kids should not play the tuba no matter what.
Sir, have you read
IQ and the Wealth of Nations
- by Richard Lynn
the way we test, both on formally and informally, is the fundamental structure of a society. the more people living inside that box, the smaller it gets, till it can't hold anymore, the more people living outside that box, the larger it gets to include more people, but if it's too big it's like it's not there at all.
I know we're told to think outside the box and there is no box, that's talking about creativity. different box. (unless your being tested on your creativity, in which case, go bonkers)
to summarize, testing gives us orientation towards specific trains of thought that make our interactions and cooperation smoother. too much testing is like saying this is where you need to be, without giving you the time to get there or rushing you so much that you forget your pants.
Yeah you could just rely on the strengths you carry already.
Money is the objective measure of a person's worth and success.
Standardized testing is a terrible way to test a student, but an adequate way of testing hundreds of millions of students.
are his shoulders uneven or is it just me?
For teachers to have the time to sell skills and knowledge to their students, you need a teacher for every 5-10 students rather than the 30-70 students teachers are currently overloaded with.
Otherwise teachers are an easily ignorable TV at the front of the room which students will continue to treat as a break between playground sessions.
And "it's the parents responsibility to set their kids straight" only works if the parents are on a high enough salary TO NOT HAVE TO WORK AN 80 HOUR WEEK AND THEMSELVES HAD ENOUGH OF AN EDUCATION TO PASS ON KNOWLEDGE TO THEIR CHILDREN IN THE FIRST PLACE.
That's the biggest problem with our education systems, they lean way to heavily on an assumption that the parents are able to do the part the education system expects them to do, and real life just doesn't conform enough to these expectations.
First, ya I know I'm a douche
ya we know you're a douche
+John Doe You should go and do a standardized test)))
im thinking the wire
Teachers should not ask "How intelligent are you?' rather, "How are you intelligent"
Medical Cannabis Spain - They shouldn’t ask either. It’s not a teacher‘s place or anyone’s place to impose the importance of a person’s intelligence, specially if a person is of lower intelligence or has learning difficulties/disabilities. If they do, it doesn’t mean they don’t have value. It doesn’t mean they don’t have special skills or abilities that they can use to improve themselves or even contribute to society.
the other problem is to keep the kids motivated with hope in economical disaster and social decomposition and the environment social environment the child live and grow up
Soon we will make different tests for different races so all on average get average points.
Just for equality XD
+Dysputant Yeah, just like we did with women. Check out wikipedia, it says right there that the test results are corrected to fix gender disparity.
all they want to know is if you are compliant.
Is this THE Howard Gardner?? Sh**, I think it is...
I know Asians are big fans of affirmative action Mr Howard.
It actually works against Asians, generally. Especially for Asians attempting to get in medical schools for example, as this is probably the most competitive race bracket. So yeah, if you're Asian like me, it sucks lol.
There shouldn't be any race brackets even your women get their own special and much better bracket than cry patriarchy.
If marginalized minority person has a near even score they should have to upgrade average or try the sat again.
+The Uncommon Nightingale I'm not for it, as it does not provide me with any benefit. I'm not saying we're better or anything, but statistically Asians score the highest, so affirmative action doesn't do anything but hurt our chances in getting into competitive programs or schools.
I know all this, my first comment was meant to be sarcastic.
Idk if you heard the argument but in the NBA 74% of all players are black and no one cares could you imagine if we replaced over half of them with Asians?
The issue is that the culture is has conditioned most of you to be too modest when other minorities just keep complaining even though their scores are lower.
What pisses me off the most about this situation is that regardless if the average east Asian IQ is 5 points higher I know what it's like to have foreign parents and that expectations it brings... Their is a crazy work ethic that goes along with that IQ but people are too superficial too see that.
Affirmative action is not a tie breaker. Not the way it is used today. But you knew that.
Warning incoming haters.
I'm ded clever. I think dat peeps need tests n shit cuz it's easy to cheat
You only need look at our most successful and brilliant men and women to know standardized testing is rubbish everybody cant be like newton, Feynman or Turing. Einstein passed through the academic system without being recognized for his extraordinary genius the school failed him in my opinion as even now his ideas still yield benefit (gravitational waves). What of people like Gandhi or Churchill and Mandela with the uncanny ability to galvanize men, i will hazard a guess by saying Davinci, Beethoven or Nietzsche couldn't do it to save their lives but these people passed through the education system unnoticed. The system is a joke i would be interested in seeing the amount of successful brilliant people without conventional brilliance the academic system looked over i will hazard another guess the number would be astounding.
You're mentioning a bunch of people who did not go through the same education system we have, and most of those people grew up in a time before most standardized testing. I mean, Beethoven, of all people? He didn't even go to a formal school, and people already knew he was talented from a young age. He'd been taught music since he was 5 years old.
And you're wrong about Einstein. People already knew he was talented from a young age. They just say that people didn't recognize it to make stupid kids feel better about themselves. Look at his biography.
PinuyashaRPG You're wrong about Einstein he wouldn't have being working in a patent office if they really knew what he was capable of, his recognition only came after he published. People like Alan Turing are who the academic institution is built for, he taught himself algebra, he has linear logically thinking. Richard Branson's uncanny business savvy cannot be quantified currently, no way he would have being labelled brilliant in any academic institution, he was also dyslexic.
I use Einstein's example not to say he lacked standardized knowledge but to say his greatest gifts were his imagination and creativity which are still not tested for today. The way he came to his conclusions was nothing short of extraordinary and needed a firm understanding of the sciences but without the imagination and creativity, he would have come up short big time, even he would agree as he advocated the importance of imagination and creativity.
*****
How would anyone know anything about his talents before he was published? He didn't do anything. A high GPA is no indication that you're a genius. It could just mean you spent all your time studying instead of doing anything else. Why should anyone care about what he did before he was published? He hadn't proved that he could actually do anything yet. If someone got a 4.0 in computer science out of college, does that automatically make them the next Bill Gates?
Truth is the majority of kids who can't handle some standardized tests or regular old high school truly are dumb. You can point out 5 geniuses that slipped under the radar, and I'll point out to you 5000 people who were just as underwhelming as their performance suggested. If a kid is actually creative and imaginative, they'd find a way to get around barriers like a low high school GPA, and standardized testing anyway. Community college is the easiest ticket past standardized testing, yet most students can't even handle getting a high GPA out of CC, let alone complete it.
PinuyashaRPG You said and i quote "you're wrong about Einstein. People already knew he was talented from a young age." this is the only reason i elaborated on Einsteins discovery as a brilliant mind. As for the discovery of geniuses or brilliant people i'm not purporting everyone is so but i'm saying the amount of those who succeed in the real world due to their brilliance solely(Einstein included) and the amount of those same people discovered by academic testing are disproportionate, i feel those missed by academia are of a higher percentage, i have no empirical evidence to support this but if you argue against it, i can only accept your position as there are no facts.
Excuses made for the stupid people.
Suomi mainittu. Torilla tavataan!