Children's IQ and Achievement Test-

In the past month I have been asked by several readers what I thought of the "Children's IQ and Achievement Test." Since this is an area of particular interest to me I jumped on the opportunity to take a detailed look at the program. I have monitored and given at least a thousand IQ and achievement tests.

This program from the box looks like something many homeschoolers and parents would be interested in. Who wouldn't want to know how their child stacks up to the rest of his or her peers? The box makes it look like the program is certified by the prestigious "American School." Upon furthur investigation of the literature, you will find that "American School Ceritified" is something developed by PROED and Virtual Knowledge themselves! A very detailed parental guide helps the parent wade through all of the information they will need to administer the test. A good question and answer section is included as many parents will have concerns of questions. I found several serious problems with the testing procedures themselves. While I will not tell you NOT to buy the program, these are serious enough concerns that you should be made aware of them.

The idea of administering tests on the computer with cute graphics, background music and charachters who encourage you to keep going is new. Therefore these test results should not be compared directly to tests administered in a more traditional setting. The results of your child may correlate well, but the variance in testing environments may show a discrepancy in test results. In administering this test and the Slosson Inteligence Test and Reading Placement Test I found a variance of ten point on the IQ portion and an entire grade level on the reading test. Keep in mind that a variance of ten points between two IQ tests is rather significant. The IQ portion of the test was what had me most concerned. Statements in the latest editon of Family PC magazine attributed to the president concerned me. It is apparent that the company considers the achievement portion to be the most important and is using the IQ term as something of a marketing ploy.

Your child will be guided through the testing procedure by two on-screen friends. After each of the six subtests he will be allowed to play a simple game to "relax." After taking the test, most kids will NEED the relaxation! One fatal flaw in the testing procedure may make this test very stressful for some children. When you administer an IQ test such as the Stanford-Binet test or one of the many achievement tests used in schools, the administrator stops given the test after a specified number of wrong answers are given, generally ten. In this computer administer test your child will be forced to continue taking the entire subtest. This will push many children beyond there frustration point. You may have a child who takes things in stride, but some children will be very frustrated, especially if they already are wondering if they "match up." The questions given on the apptitude portion are similar to those on most IQ tests, but are more "school related" and I don't feel do a good job of measuring IQ. I would suggest ignoring the IQ results and focusing on the achievement results if you choose to use this test. I don't necessarily feel it is a good idea for kids to know their own IQ or even for parents to know the results. Most of the testing we did was kept confidential and most parents did not want to know the results. It will be dificult to ignore those results however and my recommendation would be to only give the achievement portion and not even administer the IQ portion. The difference I saw is enough to raise or lower your child from "dull" to "average" on an IQ scale!

The achievement portion tests subjects such as math computation, reading vocabulary, paragraph comprehension and letter/word recognition. Keep in mind that the test I looked at was for children K-3. There are modules for older children available. The math computation portion was going along smoothly until I came to the word problems. You can not test mathematical prowess on word problems that are not read aloud to the child. The test then becomes a reading comprehension test and not a math test! Most of these subtests are timed. At one point I began randomly answering questions to see what happened. Fortunately for the test validity no immediate feedback was given. Every few minutes however your child will be told what a good job he is doing, what a good listener he is etc. This became rather comical as I knew I was merely guessing.

Once the test is finished you as a parent can access the results with a password. Here you will see graphs which tell you how well your child did in comparison to the "rest of the population." There is apparently quite a bit of leeway in the analysis as my phony test placed me a full grade level below where I "should" have been and I was told in the analysis that I was "about on grade level and probably doing well." The computer did try to be kind with my disastrous results, but I did not feel that the feedback was much help. The one exception was the comparison portion. This may help a parent determine if their child is a visual or auditory learner. Most parents however, could take a pretty good guess at this already. I was basically told that the poor results may be attributed to a number of things and that I must look at each of the examples to determine exactly where the weaknesses were. Before administering the test however, I was told that the parent should probably not be in the room when the test is administered. While this is a standard testing procedure this does not allow the parent to see exactly where mistakes were made or to monitor the frustration level of a child. When a live person is administering a test it is easy to watch the frustration level of a child. An administrator is also allowed to go back to easier questions to releave the pressure or to check for "guess work." No such option is available in a computer administer test.

If you want to know approximately where your child lies in comparison to other children, this test is all right as long as the results are not taken too seriously. This will give you a rough idea as to where there may be gaping holes in your child's education. More than likely you knew where those huge holes were already. The price is not bad, and no one is going to feel like they sunk a fortune in to this program. The tests can be administered every six months and results compared. If you are looking for an easy to administer achievement test which can be done at home, this may very well be your best bet. I feel the testing done at the schools in a one-on-one setting will give you a more accurate picture. If this is not an option for you, you may want to administer these tests yourself. Keep in mind that the IQ portion is not what is important here, and watch your child for frustration.

Grading:

Educational value- 1
Entertainment value- 2
Use of medium- 3
Dollar value- 3
Age- Three modules for K-9 available

You may want to try Children's Skills Test instead at Amazon