[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-298399-105":59,"doc-detail-298399-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","testing-for-competence-rather-than-for-intelligence","Testing for Competence Rather Than for “Intelligence”","","The text examines the U.S. intelligence and aptitude testing movement, arguing that its widespread authority is not justified by robust evidence of validity. It questions why such tests determine educational and employment opportunities, including their documented effects in screening minority applicants. The discussion reviews key lines of evidence, grants limited performance differences for brain-damaged or retarded people, and then challenges the strength of score-to-outcome claims by analyzing grade prediction and long-term success patterns reported by researchers.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/testing-for-competence-rather-than-for-intelligence/298399/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/testing-for-competence-rather-than-for-intelligence/298399.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Oliver","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-31","2026-09-18",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":39},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"Why does the author question the power of intelligence and aptitude tests?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"The author argues that their use depends on validity, yet the evidence for validity is not as overwhelming as many assume. The tests have major impacts on education and careers, so their justification requires careful scrutiny.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How does the text evaluate whether aptitude tests predict school grades?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"It notes that aptitude tests are built around classroom-like tasks, so their scores correlate with grades. However, the author emphasizes that this correlation alone is not sufficient to prove broader predictive validity.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What evidence does the text cite about grades and later life success?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"The text describes research difficulty in linking grades to other important behaviors beyond performing on similar aptitude tests. It recounts a personal comparison of top students and poor students years later, finding no clear distinction in career success, with differences mainly in access to more selective schools.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},298399,1790820380,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":39,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145,"preview_page_count":4},8796095461610,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_276721f389ce27ea32af1340a28f341c","The testing movement in the United States hasbeen a success,if one judges success by the usualAmerican criteria of size,influence,and profit-ability.Intelligence and aptitude tests are usednearly everywhere by schools,colleges,and em-ployers.It is a sign of backwardness not to havetest scores in the school records of children.TheEducational Testing Service alone employs about  \n2,000 people,annually administers Scholastic Apti-tude Tests to thousands of aspirants to college,andmakes enough money to support a large basic re-search operation.Its tests have tremendous powerover the lives of young people by stamping some ofthem“qualified\"and others\"less qualified”for col-lege work.Until recent“exceptions”were made(over the protest of some),the tests have served asa very efficient device for screening out black,Spanish-speaking,and other minority applicants tocolleges.Admissions officers have protested thatthey take other qualities besides test achievementsinto account in granting admission,but carefulstudies by Wing and Wallach(1971)and othershave shown that this is true only to a very limiteddegree.  \nWhy should intelligence or aptitude tests haveall this power?What justifies the use of such testsin selecting applicants for college entrance or jobs?On what assumptions is the success of the move-ment based?They deserve careful examination be-fore we go on rather blindly promoting the use oftests as instruments of power over the lives of manyAmericans.  \n# Testing for Competence RatherThan for “Intelligence”\n\nDAVID C.McCLELLAND Harvard Uuiversity¹  \nThe key issue is obviously the validity of so-called intelligence tests.Their use could not bejustified unless they were valid,and it is myconviction that the evidence for their validity is byno means so overwhelming as most of us,rather un-thinkingly,had come to think it was.In point offact,most of us just believed the results that thetesters gave us,without subjecting them to thekind of fierce skepticism that greets,for example,the latest attempt to show that ESP exists.Myobjectives are to review skeptically the main lines ofevidence for the validity of intelligence and aptitudetests and to draw some inferences from this reviewas to new lines that testing might take in the future.  \nLet us grant at the outset that brain-damagedor retarded people do less well on intelligence teststhan other people.Wechsler(1958)initially usedthis criterion to validate his instrument,although ithas an obvious weakness:brain-damaged people doless well on almost any test so that it is hard toargue that something unique called“lack of in-telligence”is responsible for the deficiency in testscores.The multimethod,multitrait criterion hasnot been applied here.  \n## Tests Predict Grades in School\n\nThe games people are required to play on apti-tude tests are similar to the games teachers requirein the classroom.In fact,many of Binet's originaltests were taken from exercises that teachers usedin French schools.So it is scarcely surprising thataptitude test scores are correlated highly withgrades in school.The whole Scholastic AptitudeTesting movement rests its case largely on thissingle undeniable fact.Defenders of intelligencetesting,like McNemar(1964),often seem to besuggesting that this is the only kind of validitynecessary.McNemar remarked that“the manual  \n1  \nof the Differential Aptitude Test of the Psychologi-cal Corporation contains a staggering total of 4,096,yes I counted 'em,validity coefficients.\"Whatmore could you ask for,ladies and gentlemen?Itwas not until I looked at the manual myself(Mc-Nemar certainly did not enlighten me)that I con-firmed my suspicion that almost every one of those\"validity\"coefficients involved predicting grades incourses—in other words,performing on similar typesof tests.  \nSo what about grades?How valid are they aspredictors?Researchers have in fact had greatdifficulty demonstrating that grades in school arerelated to any other behaviors of importance—other than doing well ","cbCaiqpYw23sK8om","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiqpYw23sK8om","pdf",1402996,14,"English","# Testing for Competence Rather Than for “Intelligence”\n## Tests Predict Grades in School","[{\"question\":\"Why does the author question the power of intelligence and aptitude tests?\",\"answer\":\"The author argues that their use depends on validity, yet the evidence for validity is not as overwhelming as many assume. The tests have major impacts on education and careers, so their justification requires careful scrutiny.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the text evaluate whether aptitude tests predict school grades?\",\"answer\":\"It notes that aptitude tests are built around classroom-like tasks, so their scores correlate with grades. However, the author emphasizes that this correlation alone is not sufficient to prove broader predictive validity.\"},{\"question\":\"What evidence does the text cite about grades and later life success?\",\"answer\":\"The text describes research difficulty in linking grades to other important behaviors beyond performing on similar aptitude tests. It recounts a personal comparison of top students and poor students years later, finding no clear distinction in career success, with differences mainly in access to more selective schools.\"}]","Testing for Competence Rather Than for “Intelligence” | PDF",1789756866,35]