A Little More Background on Ability Testing: Part 1
A Little More Background on Ability Testing: Part 1
To Help You Better Understand Your Own Test Results (Maybe)
Not all IQ tests are on the same scale, so unless you know this, you might end up comparing apples and oranges. A 180 IQ on one test might be only a 145 or 146 on another!
IQ tests, and other standardized tests we take over the years, are designed to “sort” people on a range of abilities. The scores, and the percentiles for the scores, rank-order our performance and compare us to a group of peers (generally those so-called peers are people the same age as we are from the full spectrum of test takers). The results tell us what proportion of the people who took the test did better or worse than we did.
For IQ test results to have meaning, we need to know who the “peer group” was for the particular test you took.
Think of this: when we were in grade school and took those tests we had to take, we may have gotten mostly 99th percentile scores, or at least above the 90th percentile. I’m guessing that is true for you because you wouldn't have chosen to read this article if you weren’t that kind of person.
Depending on where in that range we were way back in elementary school, most of us see our percentile results drop when we take tests such as the PSAT, the SAT, the Explore Test, and the ACT. Even more of us are likely to see our percentiles drop when we take the GREs or other graduate or professional school tests. When that happened for me in some cases, I used to think the problem was that I’d simply become too much of a social butterfly during my teen years and “lost” my focus. (There was some truth to that).
It turns out that, in many cases, we were simply being compared to a different group of people as we got older. If you were a “smart kid,” your early scores compared you to all of the children your age in school at the time. If you or your children took the Explore Test (which is no loner available at this time), the one that helps you plan your high school coursework, the one that gives smarter students a chance to take a test that has higher ceilings than the grade level tests, unless you are the most supremely intelligent kid around, you are not as likely to get any 99th percentile scores on the Explore Test.
In a nationally normed sample of students, kids of all abilities, your score would still be 99th percentile, but not if you’re being compared to your true peers.
Okay, what are true peers? They are people who are in your intellectual range, people who share your interests and sense of humor. They may or may not be in your age range. They have intellectual abilities that are very much like yours. When you take the SAT or ACT, both tests that help universities and individuals “sort” prospective students for their ability to succeed in college-level courses, most of the students who struggled with academics for the preceding 8 or 9 years will have opted out of university-level preparation by then. Fewer of them are still in the sample pool who takes the ACT and SAT. Within this new group of test-takers, the average IQ or academic ability level goes up. There are fewer people “below” you. Your percentiles go down.
I will post “What Else Makes IQ Scores Hard to Count On?” shortly. It’s a topic that comes up a lot because my doctoral academic focus was Test & Measurement, I will continue to “translate” to any audience that will read or listen how tests really work and what they do — and don’t - mean. Feel free to sign up to receive my posts when they occur.
My current published books about the gifted:
The Five Levels of Gifted Children Grown Up: What They Tell Us (2023). https://www.amazon.com/Levels-Gifted-Children-Grown-Up/dp/B0C9SHFRLH or https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-5-levels-of-gifted-children-grown-up-phd-deborah-l-ruf/1143719859?ean=9798988323709. This is an 18 year longitudinal study follow-up about the original gifted child subjects in 5 Levels of Gifted: School Issues and Educational Options (2005, 2009).
Keys to Successfully Parenting the Gifted Child (2023). Keys to Successfully Parenting Gifted Children (2022, 2023)
Losing Our Minds: Too Many Gifted Children Left Behind (October 2024). To pre-order, follow this link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DHV6QT6F
5 Levels of Gifted: School Issues and Educational Options in 2009. Here are links to the 5 Levels of Gifted book on Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/5-levels-of-gifted-deborah-ruf/1126358834 and Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Levels-Gifted-School-Educational-Options/dp/0910707987 or directly from the publisher: https://www.giftedunlimitedllc.com/store/p12/5_Levels_of_Gifted.html
Environmental, Familial, and Personal Factors That Affect the Self-Actualization of Highly Gifted Adults: Case Studies (D. Ruf, 1998) doctoral dissertation. Free PDF https://dabrowskicenter.org/ruf
Dr. Ruf is available for the following services.
Click for details and to schedule:
One-Hour Test Interpretation
Gifted Child Test Interpretation & Guidance
20-Minute Consultation
45-Minute Consultation
One-Hour Consultation
Podcast Interview