How are IQ tests used

IQ tests are generally used in educational institutions such as schools and colleges and for entry into certain courses. They are also being used in various forms for employee selection.

Many people believe that using an alleged measure of intelligence like the IQ for selecting prospective employees or students is unfair. However IQ tests are designed to gauge a person’s cognitive skills such as mathematics, reasoning, language etc. They don’t have a precise bearing to a person’s motor skills so IQ tests can be relevantly used for selecting candidates for jobs and fields which involve research and management tasks.

Most organizations that use IQ tests are looking for people who achieve average to high scores in IQ tests. After extensive usage of the tests, psychologist have discovered that 50% of the people who take the test fall in the ‘average’ category, 25% are in the ‘high’ category and only 25% in the ‘low category.

Popular academic tests such as SAT and GMat also aim a gauging mental abilities akin to the ones being gauged by IQ tests. On the professional front though, it would be inadequate to select a prospective employee just on the basis of his IQ score because a job also requires interpersonal skills, individual traits and personality. However since we don’t have tools to tests a person’s prowess in these areas an IQ test is a good way to select an employee since it correlates with many positive traits.

IQ tests have also been successfully used in children to diagnose learning disabilities. There are also societies like MENSA which have been formed for people with high IQ scores. It would certainly be inappropriate to conclude that people with low IQ scores are morons the way some of the older doyens of IQ tests assumed. But IQ tests do help in measuring certain core skills