The Nature vs. Nurture Debate For years, psychologists have argued about what extent genetics and the environment determine the physical makeup of a person. Are individuals more influenced by their genes or by their environment? The nature-nurture debate seeks to distinguish between a biological and social perspective of human development. In the nature-nurture debate, many psychologists reference certain factors such as intelligence and education as an example of the environment having a low impact (Brysbaert & Rastle, 2009). Brysbaert and Rastle describe a situation where there is low correlation between parents’ socioeconomic status and child intelligence, thus leading many psychologists to believe that the impact of the environment is
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Their principles are based on the logic that we must not allow the potential results of intelligence studies and race influence how we conduct research. Although we would prefer that race has no impact on intelligence, it is impossible to confirm this assumption without proper unbiased testing. However, the impact of relating intelligence with racial groups can quickly lead to a dramatic public opinion, so it is necessary to be sure that the results published on this matter by of the highest quality. Thus, Hunt and Carslon created principles stressing the importance of construct validity, valid measurements, properly generalized results, sample size, and policy considerations when creating a study to measure intelligence. It is important to note, that Hunt and Carlson emphasize the importance of not knowing the answer at the end of the study. It is crucial to not make over generalized conclusions to connect your experiment to one side of the nature-nurture …show more content…
I think it would be beneficial to conduct this study at a private K-12 school, to allow for a more standardized social economic status among children and their parents, hence limiting the impact of the environment on the desired sample. Also, since all students will be attending the same school for twelve years of schooling, their education should be somewhat consistent. In this study, I would like to compare the ethnic groups of White, Black and Hispanic. All students will take the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) since it includes both verbal and nonverbal components and an analysis of variance (ANOVA) will be ran to compare groups. Students taking the WAIS for the study will not be told that general intelligence across races is being measured, to try to eliminate any test taking biases. Instead they will be given the tests in the beginning of the school year by their own teachers to determine their baseline intelligence to help the teacher create the school year’s curriculum. It is hypothesized that scores between ethnic groups will not be statistically different, but the overall trend will show White students as slightly higher than Black and Hispanic. This difference can possible be accounted for by the current social climate that tells minorities that they are less than and this may cause Blacks and Hispanics to have increased test taking anxiety. Results of this
Their principles are based on the logic that we must not allow the potential results of intelligence studies and race influence how we conduct research. Although we would prefer that race has no impact on intelligence, it is impossible to confirm this assumption without proper unbiased testing. However, the impact of relating intelligence with racial groups can quickly lead to a dramatic public opinion, so it is necessary to be sure that the results published on this matter by of the highest quality. Thus, Hunt and Carslon created principles stressing the importance of construct validity, valid measurements, properly generalized results, sample size, and policy considerations when creating a study to measure intelligence. It is important to note, that Hunt and Carlson emphasize the importance of not knowing the answer at the end of the study. It is crucial to not make over generalized conclusions to connect your experiment to one side of the nature-nurture …show more content…
I think it would be beneficial to conduct this study at a private K-12 school, to allow for a more standardized social economic status among children and their parents, hence limiting the impact of the environment on the desired sample. Also, since all students will be attending the same school for twelve years of schooling, their education should be somewhat consistent. In this study, I would like to compare the ethnic groups of White, Black and Hispanic. All students will take the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) since it includes both verbal and nonverbal components and an analysis of variance (ANOVA) will be ran to compare groups. Students taking the WAIS for the study will not be told that general intelligence across races is being measured, to try to eliminate any test taking biases. Instead they will be given the tests in the beginning of the school year by their own teachers to determine their baseline intelligence to help the teacher create the school year’s curriculum. It is hypothesized that scores between ethnic groups will not be statistically different, but the overall trend will show White students as slightly higher than Black and Hispanic. This difference can possible be accounted for by the current social climate that tells minorities that they are less than and this may cause Blacks and Hispanics to have increased test taking anxiety. Results of this