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According to the graph in the middle of the article (unless I'm reading it wrong) it would seem that there are more male geniuses. The graph then, would seem t
by tkahn6 16y ago
According to the graph in the middle of the article (unless I'm reading it wrong) it would seem that there are more male geniuses.
The graph then, would seem to indicate that the sort of tests that determine a child's eligibility for entrance into the gifted programs in New York either a) do not track with IQ tests or b) filter out children with IQs lower than say 95 (therefore making more girls eligible than boys).
- strebler 16y agoI had the same initial reaction to the graph, but she seems to be using the graph to show that reality may be at odds with the enrollment numbers. Data from 1932 does seem quite out of place in an article addressing "recent trends". She goes on to suggest that the gifted programs are more targeted to girls - things like verbal-oriented tests and needing to "sit still" for periods of time.
- tkahn6 16y agoYeah. It would be interesting to know if intelligence distributions remain constant from generation to generation.
- Daniel_Newby 16y agoThe 1932 data described in the article is important because it covered nearly the entire population of a country for a particular age group -- uneven data collection could not have skewed the results. Uneven data collection is the great enemy of psychological public policy, since politicians can so conveniently project their dispute onto the people that were not sampled. The 1932 Scotland data slams that door shut. Other testing programs since then have showed a slow, steady rise in the average IQ, called the Flynn effect. However the relative shapes of the male and female histograms have been quite constant. (Ditto for the relative shapes of the racial curves.)
- tokenadult 16y agoDitto for the relative shapes of the racial curves. There has been some convergence, that is lessening of a gap, among race and ethnicity groups in the United States as a matter of group averages.
- wake_up_sticky 16y agoHow would filtering out children with IQs below 95 have any effect whatsoever on the demographics of the children who pass eligibility tests for gifted programs?
- tkahn6 16y agoAccording to the graph there are more males than females (percentage wise) with an IQ lower than 95. Males are "overrepresented" in the <95 IQ range.
- wake_up_sticky 16y agoYes, and they are not going to be taking the gifted program entrance exams in the first place...