A common myth is that only a psychologist can administer a proper psychological assessment, and that assessments are costly. We disagree. With the advent of technology and new methods of assessment, there are now cost-effective digital alternatives that are highly reliable and will give you a highly accurate picture of your cognitive ability.
The question then is what value free tests deliver.
The mechanics behind measurement
Almost all professionally administered IQ tests, such as the WAIS-IV and the Stanford-Binet, are the product of years of research and testing designed to make them as free as possible from bias and to maximize their validity. Hundreds, if not thousands, of studies have been conducted on these tests, and thousands of people of nearly every description have been tested. As a result, psychologists have a high degree of precision in determining at what point on the validated scale an individual’s score falls.
Free online assessments operate differently.
They typically use standard cognitive tests, but with a much shorter duration. Some programs adjust the difficulty of each item to the individual’s performance, based on item response theory. Others simply run a standard set of items through the full range of cognitive skills. You should be aware of these constraints and characteristics.
A good free IQ test should be able to quickly and accurately measure a variety of cognitive areas and provide an indication of the individual’s problem-solving abilities and relative strengths and weaknesses. Please note that a free test is only an approximation and should be taken as a rough guide only. It is intended for entertainment purposes only and should not be used for any other purpose.
What the research actually shows
In this post, we’re talking about Onshoring the cognitive testing debate There have been so many nuaces to the on line cognitive testing research that have probably obscured the fact that onshoring the testing of cognitive ability probably does work quite well. For example, a number of studies of the relations between cognitive tests given via a web site have been published in the mainstream psychological journals and generally found relations to traditional, paper-and-pencil measures of cognitive ability to be quite large. For example, they tended to be moderate to high on those kinds of tasks which are likely to measure the kind of “fluid intelligence” that was almost certainly the sort of thing that the Amazon programmers were interested in assessing such as matching a pattern and other logically reasoning kinds of tasks, and the correlations were generally in the range of .6 to .8– pretty large numbers given that the test takers were a survey of the unselected public.
These figures suggest that quality online assessments capture genuine cognitive signal.
Free tests are less effective in measuring crystallized intelligence, that is, knowledge and skills acquired over a lifetime. A commercial testing battery has a large verbal section in order to evaluate the candidate’s vocabulary, general knowledge and cultural background. Free tests exclude this type of material, only including the culture-fair parts, which are easier to translate and are intended to test only those abilities that can be more or less compared between cultures.
The standardization gap
The amateur movement has done much to improve the status of testing, but there is still a very considerable difference between a professionally given test and a test given by an amateur. In order to get a valid score from a properly standardized and balanced test, one must take into account a great many factors; among them are: the character of the test room, the rigid observance of time limits, and the performance of numerous other routine details of a purely formal nature, all of which are entirely out of the amateur tester’s control in his living room, half-awake, self-administered experiment.
There is an incorrect assumption that since computer programs can look at the pattern of brainwaves associated with cognitive skills that assessments of cognitive skills can now be done through computerized testing. But the computer program is only a part of the assessment given by a professional psychologist. The computer program merely gives some information that the psychologist will interpret and explain to you. The computer program has not taken into account the effect of tiredness, anxiety or lack of attention to name a few that could affect how you perform on the test. The psychologist has a professional knowledge of the underlying factors and this information has to be taken into account.
Finding the sweet spot
Free IQ Tests are best regarded as a general educational exercise that teaches you about the various aspects of your cognitive abilities. They should not be taken for granted as a real test and therefore not as a way to get certified with an exact IQ number.
Free tests are all right for an educational or career search context or just for fun. They are not sufficient for a real medical diagnosis. But they can give a good idea of a person’s abilities and areas where they might need to improve. For example, a student wishing to decide between two possible careers which require a very high level of analytical ability gives the following results for a free on-line test of matrix reasoning and mathematical skills: Score: 155 (95th percentile) Comments: The test is not precise enough to serve as a basis for a clinical diagnosis but clearly the student is doing far better than average and thus would probably be well-suited to a career requiring highly analytical reasoning.
The verdict
There’s nothing wrong with taking a Free IQ Test as long as you realize what it’s testing and what it’s not. Free tests tend to give a broad-brush understanding of your cognitive abilities and give a rough idea of your relative strengths and weaknesses. However, they won’t test your abilities in great detail. As tools evolve, users are increasingly turning to smart digital solutions at TechPount for guidance on how modern testing works and what it can realistically deliver.
If you are just curious about your mind and have no real need for a full psychological evaluation, the tradeoff is probably more than acceptable. The fact that we have open access psychological testing at all is a huge step forward in the field of psychology. While the tests provided by professionals will have more granularity and be more clinically valid, the fact that good quality free tests exist at all means that free testing is a legitimate option.
