Academic literature on the topic 'Ability Aptitude Tests'

The assessment is not limited to only the measurement of memorized awareness; all the way through it, the various abilities of the individual are considered. Such evaluation of abilities is of great significance in obtaining knowledge about the individual's aptitude, interest, capability, and capacity. The evaluation of ability is now done with the help of psychological tests. The different types of psychological tests that are used in measuring intelligence and different types of abilities. It is worth consideration that the psychological tests are constructed on certain general principles and in this connection some specific conditions and characteristics are always kept in mind. In this chapter, the author's aim is to describe these principles and the specific conditions as well as to assess the importance of learning analytics on this platform.

Psychometric testing is widely used outside medicine as part of an employee selection process, although its use has attracted a great deal of criticism too. In the NHS, psychometric tests are often used for selection of mangers and a growing number of Trusts are now using psychometric testing as part of the consultant interview process. This chapter looks at the implications of this and at some of the more commonly known tools. Psychometric tests include personality tests, e.g. Myers—Briggs and Insights, as well as aptitude tests designed to assess an individual’s general logical ability, and verbal, numerical and technical reasoning. Aptitude tests are thought to be more accurate in predicting job performance than personality tests but have not been widely used in medicine. The tools used within medicine tend to look at a person’s personality, how they behave within teams and how they respond to conflict. Some of the more commonly used tools are: • Myers—Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) • 16 Personality Factor (16PF®) • Insights Discovery® Personality Profile (Insights) • Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation (FIRO-B®) • Thomas—Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI) • Strength Deployment Inventory® (SDI®) Two of these tools, MBTI and SDI, explicitly state that they should not be used as part of a selection process. However, they are increasingly being used, driven by the advice of unqualified or unscrupulous behavioural consultants! . . . What should I do if asked to sit a test? . . . You are who you are. Do not panic and do not try to work out what the panel want when answering questions about your personality. In general you will only get it wrong! The outcome of your assessment will not be you and the person you appear to be may be less suited for the job than the real you. Equally, this is not something you can practise—you can’t really ‘get good’ at something that is designed to simply show the real you! It’s also worth remembering that if the panel members are determined to employ someone you are not, ask yourself whether you would be happy in the role.

Jake was enjoying his first few months of piano lessons and eager to make musical connections with all he was learning. At his last lesson, he learned the pattern of whole steps and half steps of a major scale, discovering the joy of playing his first black key in the G major scale. The teacher was hesitant to venture farther than C major and G major during that first introduction to scale structure. Jake couldn’t wait to share the discovery he had made “all by himself” during his week of piano exploration. He began his journey from the bottom C of the keyboard. He played the scale he had learned last week, jumping up five keys to G and playing that scale. Then with a wry smile, he ventured five more keys up to D, A, E, B, and so on, playing each discovered scale with imaginative fingering but accurate notes! Jake had discovered the basic scale relationship of the “circle of fifths” on his own. Jake’s curiosity and ability to find and solve a musical problem exemplifies a student who demonstrates musical intelligence. This term describes the process of developmental learning through music, which distinguishes it from music aptitude, which is based primarily on natural musical capacities. The concept of musical intelligence most likely dates back to the early Chinese and Greek theories of music and most decidedly is included in the texts of Carl Seashore. The renaissance of the term can be credited to Howard Gardner, a leading cognitive psychologist at the Graduate School of Education of Harvard University, who included musical intelligence as one of seven multiple intelligences in Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (1983). The publication of Gardner’s theory broadened the concept of intelligence from a single factor of general intelligence, or “g,” to seven separate intelligences, each unique to a specific domain. Actually, the idea of multiple intelligences is not new or novel. J. P. Guilford’s Structure of Intellect (1959,1967) includes over 120 different ways of knowing. Tests and curricular models based on this theory are prevalent in the field of gifted education.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart began composing at the age of four. He toured as a prodigy for three years before the age of ten, astounding audiences with his ability to perform on the harpsichord, voice, organ, and violin. He would compose on sight in different styles and on different instruments. He could “most accurately name from a distance any notes that may be sounded for him either singly or in chords, on the clavier or on every imaginable instrument, including bells, glasses, and clocks.” When his father was recovering from an illness, eight-year-old Wolfgang was not allowed to play the piano. He filled his time by composing his first symphony (K.16) for all instruments of the orchestra. When we hear the word “gifted” in connection with music, the musical prodigy immediately comes to mind. The arguments of recognizing talent through performance, creative endeavors, or music aptitude tests seem incidental in comparison to the possibilities and accomplishments of the musical prodigy. There is no question that these young musicians show incredible levels of musical talent, often exhibiting musical capabilities equal to those of a highly trained adult. Mozart remains the preeminent example of the prodigy, described by his father and teacher as a “God-given miracle,” knowing “in his eighth year what one would expect from a man of forty. Indeed, only he who sees him can believe it.” A prodigy is a child who displays extraordinary talent at an early age. Prodigies occur most often in the field of music, exceeding the total of all other fields combined. Musical prodigies show outstanding abilities at a younger age than other prodigies, with some as young as three or four years old. The field of chess is a distant second place in number, with prodigious achievement often seen at five or six years of age. Relatively few prodigies are identified in the natural sciences, philosophy, dance, or plastic arts. Even the field of mathematics, whose young calculating wonders gain media recognition, have few true prodigies capable of original mathematical reasoning prior to their teen years. The literature offers differing opinions concerning age and prodigious talent.

The musical spark that I have discussed in theoretical terms, sought through research, and personally reflected on now requires simple definition. What are the basic underpinnings of musical talent that we can recognize, “kindle,” and develop? If we take away the technical intricacies of musical training, a set of talent criteria emerge that describe how one musically “knows” and the behaviors that develop this musical “knowing.” These musical underpinnings are the ability to be keenly aware of sounds, to inwardly sense and manipulate these sounds, and to communicate them to others through personal interpretation. These are the simple basics, from kindergarten to the Van Cliburn Competition. Take away the technical trappings, and there you have it. This chapter puts ideas gathered from earlier chapters into a simplified musical talent framework that can be used as a cohesive reference for musical talent identification. Each criterion is explained, with talent indicators and procedures to trigger this recognition. The criteria that describe the basic underpinning of musical talent consist of: • Musical awareness and discrimination perceptual awareness of sound rhythmic sense sense of pitch • Creative Interpretation metaperception • Dynamic of performance • Motivation and commitment To support active use of this chapter as a way to recognize musical talent, Sparkler Activities that highlight each talent criterion are offered throughout the chapter. Asterisks (*) indicate key talent behaviors, and there are follow-up activities to expand opportunities for identification. Musical “knowing” begins with the ability to listen. Musical awareness describes the perceptive sensitivity to sounds. Musical discrimination is the sensing of differences in sounds. These inherent sensory capacities are described as music aptitude by music psychologists and music intelligence by cognitive developmental psychologists. The capacity to sense musical components of rhythm, loudness, pitch, and the tonal quality of sounds may be psychometrically measured through the administration of a music aptitude test. These capacities can also be assessed through activities that focus on aural perception, rhythmic movement, and tonal memory of melodies or songs. Musical awareness and discrimination consists of three basic sensory components—the perceptual awareness of sound, a rhythmic sense, and a sense of pitch.

No one doubts that immense variability exists at the neural level. Even when the identical stimulus is presented repeatedly within a single experimental session, the response of an individual neuron varies from trial to trial. Similarly, with lowlevel cognitive processes such as association, there is no disagreement concerning the existence of competing units. Models of associative memory, both symbolic (e.g., Gillilund & Shiffrin, 1984) and subsymbolic (e.g., Seidenberg & McClelland, 1990), are predicated on the assumptions that stimuli have multiple associations and that these varying associations influence the way in which we remember. Higher level cognition, however, has been treated differently. Many models are universalist: Everyone is depicted as proceeding in the same way when relevant stimuli are presented. Other models are comparative; they hypothesize different ways of thinking among groups defined on the basis of such characteristics as age, expertise, or aptitudes, but hypothesize a single consistent kind of reasoning within each group. Thus, 8-year-olds might be depicted as performing in one way and 5-year-olds in another, experts in one way and novices in another, people with high spatial ability in one way and those with low spatial ability in another, and so on. The finest differentiations that are typically made within these comparative approaches examine individual differences within people of a single age; for example, reflective 8-year-olds are described as taking a long time but answering accurately on the Matching Familar Figures Test, and impulsive 8-year-olds are described as answering more quickly but less accurately (Kogan, 1983). The main purpose of this chapter is to summarize the rapidly growing body of research suggesting that variability is actually a pervasive reality in high-level, as well as low-level, cognition. To place this work in context, however, it seems useful first to briefly consider some prominent examples of universalist and comparative models of cognition and then to consider why they might be proposed and widely accepted even if thinking is far more variable than they depict it as being. A great deal of cognitive research has been devoted to identifying the processing approach that people use on a particular task. This universalist approach has led to many influential models and theories.

There are several tests to value the psychophysical characteristics of older people and, among all, the most suitable to this aim are here considered the Functional Reach (FR) test, as an index of the aptitude to maintain balance in upright position, and the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), as a global index of cognitive abilities. The sample of older people we have analysed concerns 50 healthy subjects divided into three groups according to the age (15 from 55 to 64 years old, 19 from 65 to 74 years old, and 16 more than 75 years old); they underwent a FR test, which consists first in th