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General Intelligence In Teens

One Page Proposal

Does the General Intelligence of a student have relevance to his/her performance in school? That is the question I will try to answer in this project.
I have conducted some research into the area of General Intelligence and psychometric testing. Two particular people have inspired me to do this project Charles Spearman and John
Raven. The former came up with the idea of general intelligence, or “g”, but failed in his attempts at measuring it. The latter came up with a way of measuring “g”, the famous Progressive Matrix, which is found in most intelligence and aptitude tests today. I read about these two characters in a series of articles by Dr. Steve Blinkhorn, which were published in the BBC Mindgames magazine.
The first task I need to complete to answer my original question is to measure the general intelligence of a sample group of transition year students of varying sex, left/right handed etc. I will do this by giving each student an IQ test. I will use one of the IQ tests available from www.mensa-test.com or I will ask for sample tests from Mensa themselves. This will show their “g”.
The second task is to compare results in both the IQ and memory tests to grades in a state examination such as the Junior Certificate. By comparing the student’s “g” and their Junior Certificate results we will see whether their “g” has relevance to their school performance.
From the observations made we will be able to see if students with high IQs are achieving the grades they deserve and whether people with lower IQs are doing better in subjects that have a practical aspect to them like Science or CSPE. I will then contact the Department of Education and present them with my results and make some recommendations on how some subjects are taught and examined.