Talk:Progressing a Paradigm Shift in Psychometrics

== Every normal man, woman, and child is ... a genius at something ==

On Spearman's:

<blockquote>
"Every normal man, woman, and child is ... a genius at something ... It remains to discover at what ..."
</blockquote>

Does this really hold?  What does it leave out?  Presumably the positive correlations between lots of tasks cannot be ignored, nor can the importance of individual abilities.  I like what Johnson and Bouchard (2007) [[http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2006.03.012 Sex Differences in Mental Abilities: g Masks the Dimensions on Which They Lie]. Intelligence, 2007, 35, 23-39] have to say:

<blockquote>
"... we have presented evidence supporting the idealized notion of general intelligence as a general-purpose mechanism that accesses a toolbox made up of components that vary from individual to individual. Though everyone clearly has most if not all of the same tools, individuals appear to differ not only in the skill with which they use their tools, but also in the specific tools they habitually use. For some of the more specific tools, it would appear that using one tool means failing to use another..."
</blockquote>

<blockquote>
"Performance on image rotation tasks is known to predict success in fields such as airplane piloting, engineering, physical sciences, and fine arts better than does general intelligence, and especially verbal ability [...] What has perhaps not been recognized is that inclusion of verbal ability in assessments used to recruit individuals to those fields may actually act to impair efforts to select those with the talents most relevant to the jobs in question.
</blockquote>

This hints at the same sort of thing?

--[[User:AndyFugard|AndyFugard]] 09:40, 8 June 2008 (PDT)

Kindof. But note that Spearman goes on to say that the diversity of talents cannot be demonstrated within the current psychometric paradigm. This is a common probem in science. Spearman goes on to underline the point he is making by saying that the tests from which his '''''g''''' had emerged had "no place in schools" because they led teachers to arrange pupils in hierarchies instead of encouraging them to "draw out" the diverse talents of pupils. In fact, our own work in homes, schools and workplaces shows that effective parents, teachers, and managers have to discard the kind of framework that psychologists offer them and come up with their own ideosyncratic frameworks for thinking about multiple talents and how to nurture and utilise them. Our work is confirmed in other studies of managers (eg Rosabeth Kanter, Donald Schon, and Klemp, Munger and Spencer) in other work in schools (eg Ralf Tyler) and other work in homes (Irving). The problem is to formalise the kind of descriptive framework such people use. Speraman's use of the word "genius" is perhaps a bit strong. But what happens in all of these settings is that everyone is seen to be good at ''something'' and to contribute in invaluable ways to the emergent properties of groups (which psychologists have rarely studied) which may be described using such terms as "climates of enterprise". OK. So, thanks for your comment. As I see it, we have still to attract the kind of comment that will help us to move forward in our quest.

[[User:Quester67|Quester67]] 12:54, 8 June 2008 (PDT)