Psychometric assessment Essay Example for Free

Psychometric assessment Essay Certain people tend to be more obedient than others. Individuals who have the tendency to adopt a submissive, uncritical attitude toward authority figures authoritarian submission (Adorno, 1950) tends to perform tasks when demanded. Also, people with an external locus of control (a sense that fate rules their life rather than their own actions) tend to be more obedient. However, despite the popular myth that women are more submissive, women and men are relatively equal in the degree to which they will obey demands (Eagly Carli, 1981). Dehumanisation or deindividuation is the loss of the sense of individual identity and control over our behaviour. Sensory overload, arousal, anonymity, and reduced self awareness are key factors which loosen inhibitions and thus uncharacteristic behaviour is not inline with usual internal standards. According to deindividuation theory, the psychological state of deindividuation is aroused when individuals join crowds or large groups. The state is characterized by diminished awareness of self and individuality. This in turn reduces an individuals self-restraint and normative regulation of behaviour. In social psychology, deindividuation is a major theory of group behaviour: it provides an explanation of collective behaviour of violent crowds, mindless hooligans, and the lynch mob. In addition, deindividuation has been associated with other social phenomena such as genocide, stereotyping, and disinhibition in other settings such as computer-mediated communication. Several influential studies were conducted to illustrate the force of deindividuation. For example, Zimbardo (1969) carried out a study that inspired much subsequent deindividuation research. In this study, participants were rendered anonymous by clothing them in oversized lab coats and hoods, compared with normal clothes and name tags in the control condition. The participants task was to shock a confederate in a situation similar to the classic Milgram studies on obedience. In a first experiment using groups of female students, Zimbardo demonstrated that anonymous participants shocked longer (and therefore more painfully) than identifiable participants, in confirmation of his theory. Another area of controversy in psychology is the area of psychometric testing, which aim to make important decisions affecting individuals and society. Tests are used in a variety of settings to aid selection in education and work and for diagnosis for those with learning and psychological problems. Ability tests were amongst the first psychometric tests to be developed, and controversy has surrounded their use since. Binet and Simon (1905) were commissioned by the French government to find a method to differentiate between children who were intellectually normal and those who were inferior. The purpose was to put the latter into special schools where they would receive more individual attention. In this way the disruption they caused in the education of intellectually normal children could be avoided. This led to the development of the Binet-Simon Scale, and constituted a revolutionary approach to the assessment of individual mental ability. Revisions to the Binet-Simon Scale resulted in the concept of mental age, an easily understandable concept which significantly increased the popularity of ability testing. Further developments of the tests produced the concept of intelligence quotient (IQ) and resulted in one of the currently most widely used tests, the Stanford Binet Scale. Most intelligence tests measure the general reasoning ability that is involved in many different types of problem solving behaviour. Older types of tests referred to this intelligence factor as general ability, whereas more recent tests have tended to divide the general ability into fluid intelligence (innate and not particularly influenced by ones environment) and crystallised intelligence (underlying fluid intelligence that is a product of environmental experiences. In recent years, the introduction of the eleven plus exam, which is largely compiled of IQ tests, was used to distinguish those who would proceed to grammar school and those who would be relegated to academically inferior secondary schools. Research into the psychometric assessment of intelligence has been the focus of many eminent psychologists including Spearmen, Burt, Eysenck, and Cattell. The latter two also went on further to develop (separate) personality tests, Cattells 16PF in 1970, and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) in 1975. These involve analysing a series of short yes/no questions in an attempt to decipher the nature and character of the person answering them. Today, personality assessments are mainly used in clinical settings, with their use in occupational settings increasing. They may also be used in educational settings in assessing individuals with learning problems and are still widely used and developed within academic and research settings. Personality tests are also widely used today within the work environment, perhaps for deciding whether to employ someone or not, or even to decide who gets made redundant. On the whole, psychometric tests have acceptable validity and therefore make them less prone to error than other types of assessment. The interpretation of psychometric data requires the use of norms, against which the scores of a particular individual can be compared. Psychometric assessments tend to be the only measures for which norms are available. Psychometric tests are fairly short and therefore time and cost efficient. Many are group tests, and so can be given to a number of people at the same time. In fact the development of computer programmes concerned with psychometric testing means that tests can be administered and scored by a computer, enabling results to be made available quickly and can form the basis of a discussion. Personality tests are particularly cost efficient as they prevent money being wasted on training unsuitable personnel. However, there can be an undue reliance on the results of psychometric tests. Simply discovering that a person has an aptitude for a particular occupation does not guarantee that they will be successful at that job. The mystique of psychometric test results means that they are frequently not discussed with those who complete them. In this sense there is a failure to use psychological testing humanely. Test scores can also be misused. The results of tests should not be used to withhold educational or occupational opportunities from those who may perform less well on tests of ability due to factors that have little to do with intelligence. In any instance, the results can be faked by the participant to influence the results in their favour, and so can be unknowingly misinterpreted anyway. Because of the cheapness and predictive success of many psychometric tests, there may be a failure to use other important information. Psychometric test results should ideally be used alongside other reliable information about a person, otherwise they may wrongly stereotype an individual. Furthermore, there are many cultural and sub-cultural issues that can arise when measuring IQ, which causes much controversy. At the extreme, IQ tests were used to keep out certain immigrant groups from the United States during the 1920s. Jenson (1969) suggested that genetic differences were the cause of consistently lower IQ scores observed in non white racial groups. Recent controversies relate to the systematic differences attained by different groups in society. Critics say these are the results of bias in test items. Typical examples relate to previously learned information and items using verbal information, typically English, which require reading and writing. Even when tests are translated to the native language of the participants, questions are still raised over the cultural equivalence of certain items (Zindi, 1994). Even tests which explicitly attempt to be culture fair have been questioned. The Ravens Progressive Matrices test showed that the performance of Asian immigrants has been found to improve over a five year period by an average of 15-20 points, which demonstrates that minorities will be disadvantaged in taking them until they learn different ways of approaching them (Roth, 1990). In 1972, Williams produced the Black Intelligent Test of Cultural Homogeneity (BITCH) in an attempt to highlight cultural biases in test items, which was heavily loaded towards black minorities. Using this test, it is black people who tend to score higher than whites. Particularly in IQ tests that use visual cues, participants may misinterpret an action, and their own cultural biases produce expectations which can alter what they see. They may use methods derived from an alien culture (emics/etics) and may have a hostile reception which will bias their observations. Observations are made of a sample and may not be typical of the whole culture being studies. It is also wrong to imagine a culture as being a homogenous group of people; differences within a culture may be as large as those between cultures.

The Cycle of Technology Integration Essay -- Education Teaching

The Cycle of Technology Integration The cycle of technology integration begins with planning, investigation, and experimentation. Schools go through an initial stage of planning and experimentation in which a few educators begin using technology in new ways. Then, these individuals become technology proponents. The next step in the cycle of technology integration is initial capital investments. This allows the department to determine the value of technology necessary in the schools. The ideal situation would be to have a computer in every classroom and have all of the teachers and students know and understand how to use it and receive a better education due to the technological advancements in the classrooms. After all of the costs are determined, readjustments are made. Technology Integration is a learned process requiring schools to continually re-figure their investments and methods of teaching with technology in schools. It allows the school to know how much money they have and what they will need. After t he readjusting process, new work and organizational models are created. Technology integration allows for students to greatly benefit. It allows for collaborative learning to take place with students peers and improves ones performance academically. In the United States today, most schools are currently in the first two stages of the process of technology integration (CEO 2000). Technology Innovations Technology Integration can truly only occur once the technology has been created. Film, radio, and the television were a few of the first ever created technologies in the world. In 1920, the first radio was created. This was just the beginning of the technological boom in America, which is quickly growi... ... Monitoring School Quality: An Indicators Report. Washington D.C: GPO, 2000. -A magazine article giving statistics and discussing how the learning ability of students is different from integrating the classroom. Hopkins, Gary. Education World. Principals Talk Tech: How is Technology Integration going? Retrieved November 5, 2002. http://www.educationworld.com/a_admin/admin268.shtml -An article talking about technology integration in the classroom from the principal’s point of view. It also discusses the current status of a few local schools. â€Å"Technology Integration in Education.† Edgewater Technology Teams With ASA to . Retrieved Novemeber 24, 2002 from Academic Search/Lexisnexis database. -The article talks about how a partnership allows for the Education Department of Missouri to have both better technology and cuts the cost down.

Shi Huang Di

He built new palaces to keep them content. Each of the new palaces were an exact copy of the ones they had to leave behind. He also divided the conquered land into 36 commentaries (areas), and commanded 3 officials to run each commandeer. They received orders from the emperor, and might be sacked if they did not obey. He also ordered citizens to give up all weapons to prevent rebellion. He then melted down these weapons and crafted them into giant statues to â€Å"scare away twelve giants†, which were set up outside his palace.In addition to all these changes, he also ordered the walls around towns and cities to be knocked down. Before Shih Hung Did unified China, each f the states used different kinds of measurements, language etc. So, to make things simpler, he set common standards. Everybody now had to use Gin weights and measures. They also had to use round one-ounce gold coins and half-ounce copper coins with holes in the middle, which were standard Gin money. However, th ese changes paled in comparison to the changes made to the written language.The prime minister at the time, Lie Is, was given the role to standardize all the characters of the language, as Chinese is written with characters that represent pictures and ideas, instead of the alphabet. Once he job was completed, the language was modernized and simplified into 3000 characters. He also set rules for handwriting so everybody that needed to write, such as scholars and government officials could communicate easily with each other. During the period of warring states, there weren't many roads.Even those roads were hard to go across since heavier carts created uneven ground on the soft earth. Many carts were damaged and got stuck in the roads. Shih Hung Did created a law so that all wheels and carts must be the same distance apart. He also built 5 major roads, which he named â€Å"speedways†. These speedways connected the capital with the northern, eastern and southern parts of the emp ire. During his 1 1 years of reign, Shih Hung Did built 6800 km of road. Meanwhile, in the eastern empire, the Romans only built 5984 km of road.When Shih Hung Did became the emperor of China (in 221 BC), all the rules of Gin became the rules of the entire empire. According to Gin law, everybody was responsible for each other's good behavior. And so, Shih Hung Did organized everybody into groups Of 10, and if anybody committed a crime in that family, they had to report it to the authorities, or they would get punished along with the wrongdoer. Not only that, but their father, mother, families, wife/husband and their family would also receive the same punishment.Therefore, lots of people would be punished just because one person committed a crime. Many Mongolia's, named Signing, lived to the north of the empire. They often attacked parts of the empire, so Shih Hung Did ordered many slaves to build the Great Wall. Although this original structure has not been kept in condition until t oday, a renovated version now stands in Beijing. This version follows much of the same route as Shih Hung Id's. Shih Hung Id's Great Wall was made of tightly sacked earth, which was reinforced by bamboo matting. Behind the wall stood watch towers-?3 every kilometer.An artist's impression of Shih Hung Did. None of the paintings of him at the time have survived, so this painting is based on written descriptions. Hero or Villain? Gave himself the new title of Shih Hung Did-?supreme ruler of China. He only ruled for dictator. L, Georgian Lounge will discuss both sides of the Story. Villain On the other hand, many people believe that Shih Hung Did was cruel and merciless. For one, he forced many citizens to become slaves to work on his major projects such as the Great Wall. Thousands died from hunger, exposure or ill-treatment.If they tried to rebel against him, or not follow his orders, he would kill captives publicly without a second thought. Shih Hung Did also increased taxes to pay f or materials that were used in his many projects (for example, his grave, or the Great Wall). These taxes were 20 times of their previous taxes. If the taxes were not paid, the family would all have to endure slave labor. He also took half of all the food that farmers grew as tax. This resulted in extreme poverty and hunger. As a result, many citizens turned to cannibalism, and millions died. Shih Hung Did also set many draconian laws.If these strict laws were not followed, depending on the severity of the crime, wrongdoers were set harsh punishments such as hard labor, mutilation of a person's body, being boiled alive, cut into two at the waist, torn apart by 4 horses, strangled or beheaded. In 213 BC, at a banquet hosted by Shih Hung Did, a scholar openly criticized Shih Hung Did. Shih Hung Did immediately ordered that all scholars could not criticize anything in the present or praise anything in the past. He also ordered all the scholars to hand their books to government official s. These were burned in a huge bonfire.However, some scholars still continued their ways. These scholars were found by the emperor and were executed. 460 scholars were presumably buried alive. According to an extract from SIAM Quinn's â€Å"Records of the Historian†, Shih Hung Did discouraged jobs such as scholars, thinkers and philosophers, because many of these people were against the king, and they could easily influence others to go against the king. In conclusion, Shih Hung Did could be considered a hero because he was the first man to have ever united China. However, his road to success can be perceived as a cruel and violent one, which is why some people think he is a villain.

An Extremely Brief Biography of Queen Elizabeth I

On this day in history, March 24, 1603, Queen Elizabeth the first dies, leaving the throne to King James VI of Scotland. Within her reign Elizabeth enforced Protestant religion. In 1587, she had Queen Mary executed, and her conflict continued with the Roman Catholic Spain, and victoriously defeated the Spanish Armada. The Elizabethan age flourished with commerce, literature, arts, and geographical exploration. Elizabeth’s father, King Henry VIII married Anne Boleyn in hopes that Boleyn would bare a healthy son. His previous spouse, Catherine of Aragon, never successfully bared Henry a son. Despite his desperate hopes, on September 7, 1533, Anne Boleyn gave birth in the Greenwich Palace to who would later be known as, Queen Elizabeth. Eventually, Elizabeth’s mother did conceive a son, but much to Henry’s dismay the child was deceased at birth. In the eyes of Henry, Anne Boleyn became useless and tiring, therefore on Henry’s command Boleyn was executed on Ma y 19, 1536 on the Town Green. Young Elizabeth was only three years old when her mother was beheaded. Henry later remarried twice to Jane Seymore, and Katherine Parr, who together bared Henry a daughter, Mary, and a son Edward. When Henry VIII would pass, Elizabeth was his heir and next in line for the crown. Many bachelors sought after Elizabeth and wished her hand in marriage. Although Elizabeth was Henry VIII daughter, her half-sister Mary was also a rightful heir of the crown. When the crown was passed down to LadyShow MoreRelatedQueen Elizabeth II: A Biography3515 Words   |  14 PagesQueen Elizabeth II EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Queen Elizabeth II might be one of the most influential monarchs living today in this era of the democratic states. 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