Some parents are concerned about their children's IQ and go to educational centers asking for an IQ test to be administered to their child to check his IQ.

It seems that these parents believe that IQ is the main predictor of success in studies and various areas of life.

Despite attempts to explain the nature and limitations of these tests to parents, some of them still hold some false beliefs about the nature and limitations of intelligence tests.

The concept of human intelligence has fascinated researchers in various fields. Over the past decades, researchers have proposed many theories that have attempted to explain the nature of this concept through different visions. While some have focused on the concept of general mental ability, others have proposed multiple abilities and finally multiple intelligences. Their visions have varied regarding the extent to which intelligence is affected by environmental and genetic factors. The concept of intelligence has also varied according to environments and cultures.

The term intelligence is a broad term used to describe an individual's mental activity or performance, which includes many abilities such as the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, understand ideas, use language, and learn. In fact, there is no agreement among researchers in different fields on the characteristics or abilities included in the concept of intelligence, as it is sometimes narrowed to refer to one general mental ability, and at other times it is broadened to include multiple characteristics such as creativity, personality, and wisdom.

Scientists' attempts to measure human intelligence scientifically began at the end of the ninth century AD at the hands of the English scientist Sir Francis Galton, who believed that an individual's intelligence was linked to his senses, such as hearing, sight, and reaction time. Therefore, Galton believed that the functional performance of the mind could be measured through tests of sensory distinction and reaction time.

The intelligence scale created by the French psychologist Alfred Binet is considered the first successful attempt to measure human intelligence. Binet was the first to use the concept of mental age. Although the goal of developing this scale was to identify slow-learning children who could not continue their education in regular schools, the scale was later used to identify gifted children. In the early twentieth century, the American psychologist Lewis Terman at Stanford University in the United States developed this scale, which became known as the "Stanford-Binet Scale."

An individual's intelligence is expressed by the concept of the intelligence quotient (IQ), and this ratio is calculated by the ratio of mental age to chronological age and multiplying the result by 100. Therefore, an individual's IQ is average if it is equal to or close to 100. The higher it is, the more intelligent the individual is, until if it reaches 130 or more, the individual is considered gifted. The lower it is below 100, the individual is of low intelligence. If the ratio reaches less than 70, this is an indication that the child has mental retardation. According to the moderate curve that shows the distribution of human intelligence quotients, about 2.1% of society has an IQ higher than 130, and about 2.1% have an IQ less than 70.

The normal curve of the distribution of mental ability

There are two main uses of intelligence tests within educational institutions. The first use aims to assess mental disabilities and learning difficulties.

The second use relates to college and university admissions. In the United States, some universities use the SAT Reasoning Test (formerly known as the Scholastic Aptitude Test & Scholastic Assessment Test) and a student's achievement test score together as the basis for admission to many American universities. Recently, the use of aptitude tests that focus on fixed cognitive traits has decreased in favor of achievement tests that measure knowledge and skills learned during the classroom, which have become more popular and accepted.

However, there is currently considerable debate about the legitimacy and value of continuing to use test scores in college admissions decisions in the United States.

Intelligence tests have been criticized for being culturally biased and unable to identify gifted students in minority and culturally diverse groups. Some also argue that they are not based on a theory that explains how the human mind works, and that they do not measure modern ideas about intelligence that suggest that there are different types of human intelligence.  

Sample of an IQ test paragraph

The use of intelligence tests is still a subject of research and controversy in Arab environments, as most intelligence tests were developed in Western environments and therefore carry within them the characteristics of their cultural and civilizational environment.

In any case, the Arabization processes that were carried out for some of these tests attempted to introduce modifications to the content of some paragraphs to suit our Arab environment and culture. The Arab environment still needs to develop standardized measures that are more closely related to the Arab environment and its cultural and civilizational specificity.

It is well known in the field of psychological measurement that a test that is suitable for measuring intelligence in one society is not necessarily suitable for other societies. Therefore, the process of translating an intelligence test from a foreign environment requires hard and long work to ensure that the test is suitable for measuring intelligence in our Arab environment.

Many psychologists and educators today emphasize the need for a broad view of the concept of intelligence to guide the measurement process, and not to be separate from it. The theory of multiple intelligences presented by the American psychologist Gardner is one of the theories that expanded our understanding of the nature of intelligence.

This theory suggests that there are at least seven types of intelligence: linguistic intelligence, logical/mathematical intelligence, spatial intelligence, bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, musical intelligence, social intelligence, and interpersonal intelligence.

The Tri-Abilities Theory proposed by Robert Stenberg is one of the leading theories in the field of intelligence and talent. This theory suggests that there are three types of intelligence: analytical intelligence, creative intelligence, and practical intelligence.

These two theories have opened up more horizons for identifying the talents that fill our schools than the traditional theory does, which views intelligence as a general mental ability that controls all human activity and on the basis of which individuals are classified according to the moderate trend.

This is what made these two theories widely accepted by psychologists and educators in international forums and conferences.

Parents and educators should be aware that intelligence tests do not measure all the abilities that an individual possesses. There are some special abilities that these tests do not measure. Therefore, an individual obtaining a certain score does not in itself guarantee high or low levels of achievement in the future. These tests also do not measure creative abilities, which represent a major source for explaining the variation in individuals’ performance and the level of success they achieve in their practical lives.

Another important point that parents and educators should pay attention to is that all modern models of talent view the concept of talent as a complex construct consisting of cognitive and emotional factors, where the development of talent requires, in addition to ability, the convergence of mental factors and many environmental, social and emotional factors, regardless of the areas in which talent appears.

All these factors work in an interconnected and interactive manner. The cognitive processing of a task is influenced by and affects the emotional aspects of the individual. It is this interaction that makes the emotional factor important. The difference between mental and non-mental factors is that mental factors refer to the mental powers and processes that an individual needs in order to form ideas, while non-mental factors refer to the social, emotional and behavioral characteristics that can help or prevent an individual from exploiting all his energies. Ability alone does not lead to great achievement.