Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Old vs. New IQ Tests

For all our testing gurus, I have a question. I know that the old versions of IQ tests gave scores that were much higher than the scores given today, in that a child who today scores in the 150-160 range would have most likely received much higher scores on the older versions of today's tests. My question is would lower gifted scores from older tests be similarly lower? For example, would someone who scored 130-135 in the early 1980s only score in the 120s on todays tests, or is the discrepancy only seen at higher levels?

It's quite possible that someone who scored in the 120s on today's tests would have scored in the 130-135 range on Stanford Binet LM, back in the 1980. But there are other kids who are scoring 130-135 on modern tests who might have scored lower on SM-LM (Kids with super strong working memory and processing speed.)

It's harder to know what someone with 130 on a SB LM would score today, as so much of the FSIQ depends on WM and PS which just weren't part of the old score.

Why do you ask, m'dear?

Smiles,
Grinity

I would like to know. It will be a very, very long time before my kids are tested because I'm too cheap to pay for it. I would like to know how their scores compare to my old score. I'm sure someone can twist that into unhealthy competitiveness or comparativeness or whatever. Whatever. It's just old-fashioned curiosity. I'd use it internally to help me better define intelligence, not the other way around with intelligence defining us. It will never happen. Not only does the new test not match the old test, now I know there's more to the test than the final score and I don't know any of that. I mean, I'm not even the one that asked. But I wouldn't mind knowing.

The LM was a ratio IQ test ("mental age"/chronological age),while the new test scores are based on the distribution of the normal curve, so comparing the scores is really comparing apples to oranges in some ways.

Just curious. Pretty much what LaTexican said. I know what my scores were from back then, although I don't know what test it was I took. I feel as if my sense of my own abilities doesn't necessarily match the score I know if it is comparable to the scores as they are now. But I have no complaints about how things are going for me in life, so I'm merely curious. I'd pretty much just always wondered how the tests and scores differ then vs. now.

The part about the working memory and processing speed not being part of the tests back then is helpful to me -- I didn't know that was one of the differences. And I could see how adding those sections in would affect a score.

Thanks for the help!

According to the SB-5 manual, everything is compressed towards the mean as compared to the L-M. I am out of town so I can't give you the details, sorry. Realize that not just the scoring has changed, but also the entire construct of what we think intelligence *is* and how we think it should be measured. Comparisons are not particularly valid.