Friday 1 February 2019

Another Look at Average: What Can You Do with Honorable Men at 85?

This may read like a discussion about age. But it is not. Rather, it is one about intelligence. The validity of psychometrics is strongly established. However, IQ score with its confounders could show an interesting meaning with subtle deviation from what we have come to know. Although IQ scores should be largely statistical, we could, perhaps, learn something by looking at data from an interesting study in India.

Psychologist Arthur Jensen, in his book, Straight Talk About Mental Tests, showed that there are four socially sensitive thresholds on the IQ scale that mark major divisions in the probabilities of educational achievement, which may have important consequences in a person's life. He added that these thresholds are a result of the educational and occupational structure of modern industrial societies and the demands they make on the kind of mental ability measured by IQ tests. Professor Jensen explained:

The four socially and personally most important thresholds on the IQ scale are those that differentiate with high probability between persons who, because of their level of general mental ability, (1) can or cannot attend a regular school (threshold at about IQ 50), (2) can or cannot master the traditional subject matter of elementary school (about IQ 75), (3) can or cannot succeed in the academic or college preparatory curriculum through high school with good enough grades for college admission (about IQ 105), and (4) can or cannot graduate from an accredited four-year college with grades that would qualify for admission to a professional or graduate school (about IQ 115).

None of these thresholds is inexorable. They merely indicate the IQ level below which the probability is very slight that the particular achievement will be realized (emphases mine).

A study was done at an Indian medical college to know the duration of preparation, self-study hours, academic performance and its association with the IQ level of medical students, to state how to shorten the duration of completing MBBS degree.

A cross-sectional study was done on 300 medical students using a structured questionnaire derived from IQtest.com. Data collection and appropriate statistical test were applied considering p-value ≤ 0.05 as significant.

Yes, I know that online IQ tests have a bad reputation and tend to score inflation and poor validity. But the test in question did not appear to inflate the scores as we will see. And on the structure of the test, this Intelligence Test contained 38 questions and utilized 13 intelligence scales: arithmetic, algebraic, rote utilization, logical, visual apprehension, spatial skill, intuition, general knowledge, vocabulary, short term memory, spelling, geometric, and computational speed. So it may be reasonable to expect this test to give at least a crude measure of intelligence in the cohort, and to roughly rank its members.

Bring in the Results


On application of IQtest.com 5 (1.7%) subjects had below average IQ, 150 (50%) subjects had average IQ and only 30 (10%) had gifted/genius/extraordinary IQ. The academic performance of students with average IQ was highest and that of below average IQ was poorest among all. The academic performance had no positive or negative correlation with the IQ level of students (Table 3).

Most of the students had IQ in between 85 to 129 i.e. average and above average IQ.

All the students with higher IQ (gifted/genius/extraordinary) spent less than six hours for study and rest of the time in sports and extra-curricular activities.

But what is more interesting is how the performance of the average (85-114) and above average (115-129) IQ students compare.

Among 115 students with above average IQ, 37 (32.2%) spent less than six hours and 78(67.8%) more than six hours for their studies per day. Among students with average IQ 54 (36%) spent less than 6 hrs and 96 (64%) more than six hrs for their study (Table 5). The percentages are similar for both groups.

Among students with above average IQ, 73.9% needed 1 year for medical entrance exam preparation while 52% of average IQ students did. 20.9% needed 2 years among students with above average IQ while it was 28% for average IQ students (Table 4). There are overlaps of about 70% each in both durations for both groups!

94.8% of above average IQ students needed at most 2 years for preparation while it was 80% for average IQ students.

The academic performance of students with average IQ was highest (Table 3) in this study (of course, this could change in another study), showing the presence of both motivation and capacity.

Apparently, we have much to do with honorable men and women at 85, perhaps contrary to what the literature would suggest. They are medical doctors in our midst, proudly!

I would want to see more similar studies. But hardly was this performance pattern a fluke considering the sample size.

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