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At last weekend’s annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science (APS) in Boston, Cornell University psychologist Robert Sternberg sounded an alarm about the influence of standardized tests on American society. Sternberg, who has studied intelligence and intelligence testing for decades, is well known for his “triarchic theory of intelligence,” which identifies three kinds of smarts: the analytic type reflected in IQ scores; practical intelligence, which is more relevant for real-life problem solving; and creativity. Sternberg offered his views in a lecture associated with receiving a William James Fellow Award from the APS for his lifetime contributions to psychology. He explained his concerns to Scientific American.
[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]
What I argue is that intelligence that’s not modulated and moderated by creativity, common sense and wisdom is not such a positive thing to have. What it leads to is people who are very good at advancing themselves, often at other people’s expense. We may not just be selecting the wrong people, we may be developing an incomplete set of skills—and we need to look at things that will make the world a better place.
-- submitted from IRC
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(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday June 05 2017, @02:40PM (3 children)
Well, reading TFA, you encounter the following information:
There are links in TFA with more details about the "Rainbow Project," etc., though I don't have the time to wade through long academic articles dealing with the stats of standardized tests right now. But one of the reasons why we use standardized tests like the SAT is because they seem to correlate well with college success. If this guy has assessments that can increase that predictive ability, then I'd say he at least has a start at "predicting the future" BETTER than "existing theory." From a quick glance, the proposed assessments sound a lot more laborious both to take and to administer, and I personally would be interested in more long-term follow-ups than just performance in first year of college.
But it at least sounds like he's trying to measure real impact for his theories, contrary to your post which claims he makes no "measurable predictions about reality."
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday June 05 2017, @02:54PM (2 children)
Yeah fair enough. Science is a race (competition) so my wimpy disclaimer holds.
At least as of 10-15 years ago, when I was introduced to this dude, he was considered a punchline by the hard scientists and statisticians in his field. Maybe 100 more years of data he'll turn out to be right by producing more and better data than the competitors. That seems a realistically possible factual outcome.
My opinion is I'm not betting on it. Too vague and fluffy.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday June 06 2017, @01:17AM (1 child)
I agree some of this theory sounds pretty vague. On the other hand, what he says has a lot in common with stuff other psychologists have proposed about intelligence. The "g factor" theory of IQ tests has been widely criticized, even among psychometricians. Tests like the SAT used to be heavily g-loaded, but they've shifted further from IQ tests in recent decades -- though arguably in ways that make them more like the stereotypes this guy brings up, and involving less "creative" or "practical" intelligence. Gone are the days of antonyms, analogies, even "quantitative comparisons" in the math section, all of which required different types of thinking than the streamlined SAT of today, which seemed to have given up even on moderately advanced vocabulary.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 06 2017, @04:01PM
Sarcastically speaking slightly off topic, the standardized admissions test of the future is going to be the student's parent's credit report and probably not much else.